Gentle movement can mean the difference between not moving at all and gradually building a sustainable exercise plan. This post provides a gentle movement series to help you get started. This gentle movement series can even be done while seated. If you are struggling to implement an exercise plan, the first step is gentle movement. Always consult your healthcare practitioner before beginning a new exercise routine.
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Table of Contents
Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis.
The common triggers for MCAS are infections, toxic exposures including mold exposure and EMFs, trauma, concussions, and stress.
MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers in the form of medications and supplements, along with avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
The trouble with movement for MCAS
Exercise can be challenging for those with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) due to inflammation of the joints and muscles, pain, discomfort, fluctuations in blood pressure and heart rate, nausea, and many other possible symptoms. Some MCAS patients have exercise intolerance and may react to heat, exertion, sweating, sun exposure, or a combination of these. It can be especially hard to maintain an exercise practice — knowing that it may make you feel better in the long run — when it hurts so bad to even get off the couch.
Gentle movement and MCAS
There are no “shoulds” with MCAS, and the most important part of considering a movement practice with MCAS is to give yourself the space to move at your own pace. Movement can be both part of the problem (causing MCAS symptoms) and part of the solution (helping your body to rid itself of excess toxins and feel better).
If you are too ill to exercise, you can suffer the effects of having stagnant energy. Moving your body actually pumps lymph and other body fluids, relieving edema and allowing new blood flow to reach previously inactive areas.
Movement can affect your mental health by raising endorphin levels, the natural chemicals in your body that make you feel good.
My gentle movement series for MCAS
With all of this in mind, I developed this gentle series of movements from elements of dance, Yoga Vinyasana, Spacial Dynamics©, Qigong, and many other disciplines. They came together for me during a time when I wasn’t able to walk more than a few hundred feet without pain, heart palpitations, and severe discomfort.
It is meant to give you a starting place, no matter how debilitating your current symptoms are. You will receive benefits from these movements, even when you do them mentally in your mind’s eye, without moving your muscles.
Each of the Sacred Self-Healing Movements can be done from either a standing or a sitting position, with slight modifications. If standing, you begin with your legs about hip-width apart and your knees slightly bent. If done in a sitting position, make sure you are seated evenly on your sit bones with your shoulders facing forward.
If you are interested in learning more, my book, the Sacred Self-Healing Workbook, features in-depth descriptions of the movements with diagrams. The images that accompany each description show only the torso, so you can visualize performing the movements from either a standing or a seated position.
You will begin each Movement by standing (or sitting) with your feet or sit bones pressing firmly but gently into the ground (or your sitting surface). I will call this starting from a solid foundation.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
Get my free ebook, symptom log, and meal plan!
Want a tool to easily track your symptoms?
Check with your healthcare provider first
If you have a health condition, be sure to consult your healthcare practitioner before starting a new movement routine. These Movements are designed to be gentle, but you know your body’s limitations best. Start slow and stop if anything causes pain.
Cultivate that “being on vacation” feeling
The most important aspect of these Movements is that while you are doing them, you want to cultivate a feeling of being “on vacation.” You want the Movements to feel good! As you begin each Movement, call to mind the delicious feeling of being on vacation, of being at ease, sensing the kiss of the sun on your skin, feeling joyful, and slowing down. Hold in your consciousness a sense of gratitude for the good things you appreciate in your life, such as food and shelter, abundant resources, plentiful energy, and bountiful creativity.
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
Here’s the gentle movement video
This YouTube video demonstrates the movements in succession. Feel free to pause the video and do the movements slowly and mindfully until each one feels complete.
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
