Stress & Anxiety Recovery Podcast

Are you dreading winter?

Winter can make your world feel smaller without you even noticing:- less movement, fewer people, more screens, more comfort eating, and sometimes a return to old coping habits.

But there isn’t one “right” way to prepare emotionally for winter. Generic advice like exercising more, socialising more or sticking to a routine only helps if it fits what you actually need.

In this episode, psychotherapist Shelley Treacher explores how to understand your own seasonal patterns, make it easier to do what genuinely helps, and build more trust in your own choices.

Drawing on recent research into seasonal mood changes, Shelley explains why winter affects people differently. She also explores how scrolling, comfort eating or seeking reassurance can be attempts to soothe or meet a need, rather than simply “bad habits” you need to stop.

You’ll learn how to:

• Make movement, daylight, rest and connection easier
• Notice what you might actually need when you reach for quick comfort
• Tell the difference between something that feels difficult and something that genuinely isn’t right for you
• Protect your independence and personal boundaries, including at Christmas
• Build self-trust without expecting yourself to always get it right

This isn’t about forcing yourself to be happy, busy or productive. It’s about getting better at recognising what you need, making supportive choices easier, and knowing how to find your way back when you get off track.

Complete these four sentences:

1. During winter, I tend to lose…
2. I feel more like myself when…
3. To make that easier, I can…
4. When I get off track, I can get back on track by…

What do you already know you need this winter, and what would it be like to trust yourself enough to give it to yourself?

Shelley Treacher is a BACP Senior Accredited Psychotherapist specialising in how emotions are experienced through the body.

Research mentioned

Zhang, Y. et al. (2025), Assessing seasonal and weather effects on depression and physical activity using mobile health data, npj Mental Health Research, 4, 11.

Read the research

Related listening

If you’re struggling with persistent low mood rather than simply adjusting to the changing season, you may also find this episode helpful:

 How Can I Stop Feeling Depressed?

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We all have a moment when we want to give in, and cave to temptation.

Whether it's reaching for food, sending the text, scrolling, avoiding something difficult, or falling back into an old pattern, that moment can feel impossible to resist and unbearable.

But recovery isn't about never feeling discomfort. It's about learning the skill of staying with yourself through it. 

In this episode, I explore why we give in, what happens in our nervous system in those moments, and how somatic therapy can help you build the capacity to tolerate discomfort without immediately escaping it. 

If you've ever thought, "I know what I should do... but I can't" this episode is for you. 

You'll learn: 

•  How understanding isn't enough to create change. 
•  What happens just before we give in. 
•  The skill that supports lasting recovery and emotional resilience. 
• Why bearing discomfort is a skill worth developing.

Whether you're struggling with emotional eating, anxiety, relationship patterns, or other compulsive behaviours, learning to stay with yourself in difficult moments can change everything.

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Why does it feel so hard to stop eating, even if you understand what’s happening? 

In this episode, I explore what’s really going on in those moments where overeating feels automatic or inevitable. This isn’t just about willpower or discipline. It’s about a shift in your nervous system, and how your body tries to regulate something underneath the surface. 

I also share a personal example of how this can show up in real time, and how noticing that shift can begin to change your relationship with it. 

If this meant something to you, you might also find my other episodes on emotional eating, anxiety, and nervous system regulation helpful.

Just notice your own patterns this week. There’s nothing to fix. Just notice.

Somatic psychotherapy, emotional eating, binge eating, nervous system regulation, anxiety, cravings.

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Grief is often associated with sadness or bereavement. But it doesn’t always show up that way. 

In this episode, I explore grief from a somatic perspective and how it lives in the nervous system, not just the mind. You might experience grief as exhaustion, heaviness, brain fog, or a loss of motivation, without realising that grief is what’s underneath. 

We look at why grief can feel so physical, how it affects your ability to function, and why it often goes unrecognised when it doesn’t fit the usual idea of mourning. 

This episode may help you understand your experience differently and bring a little more compassion to what your body is going through. 

If this meant something to you, you might also find it helpful to explore my episodes on emotional eating, nervous system regulation, and relationships, where these patterns are often closely connected.

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Cravings aren’t weakness. They’re chemistry.

In this episode, I explain what a craving actually is, how urges form through the brain’s reward system, and what genuinely weakens them over time. Not through force. Not through guilt. But through nervous system learning and awareness.

This podcast explores emotional eating, stress addiction, unhealthy relationship patterns, and nervous system regulation.

If you listened to my recent episode on addiction and willpower, this builds on that conversation. Understanding cravings changes how you respond to unhealthy compulsions or addiction.

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In this episode, we explore dopamine, stress, cravings, the return of natural joy, and why recovery isn’t about willpower.

Last time, we explored why insight on its own doesn’t create change. This time, we go deeper. 

If you understand your pattern but still find yourself going back - to food, scrolling, overwork, alcohol, a person - this episode explains why. 

Addiction and compulsion aren’t about weakness.
 They’re about stress, wiring, and reinforcement. 

In this episode I talk about: 

• Why the brain returns to what “works”
• How dopamine reinforces the loop
• Why withdrawal feels so convincing
• What happens to your natural joy when you rely on external hits
• And how recovery actually begins - not through restriction, but through awareness and values-based decisions

I also share personally about my long relationship with caffeine. Not as a moral battle, but as a shift from denial to informed choice.
 
Recovery isn’t about denying pleasure.
 It’s about not denying reality.
 
When you understand what the behaviour gives you, and what it quietly costs, something shifts. that’s where real change begins.

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A lot of people feel they understand what’s going on for them… but are frustrated that still nothing actually changes.

In this episode, I explore why insight on its own often isn’t enough, especially when the nervous system is already overwhelmed, shut down, or under strain. 

January can intensify this pattern. Fatigue, illness, social pressure, comparison, grief, financial stress, and lack of light all place extra demands on the system. At the very moment we’re most depleted, we’re encouraged to push harder, get disciplined, and overhaul our lives. 

That approach often backfires. 

In this podcast, I talk about: 

• why struggling to change isn’t a willpower or motivation problem
• how overthinking can increase shutdown rather than create movement
• why procrastination is often overwhelm, not avoidance
• and what actually helps changes begin to take hold

I also guide a couple of short self-reflection pauses, not to “fix” anything, but to shift attention out of analysis and into awareness.
 
If change feels hard right now, this episode offers a different way of understanding what’s happening. One that’s kinder, more realistic, and more effective.

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It's normal for most of us to struggle with procrastination. But if you started a diet or exercise regime in the New Year and now struggle to keep it going, it might be because you didn't understand what was going on for you.  There are reasons for procrastination and it can be stopped! In ​today's podcast​, I'm going to show you how 'failing' can help you.

We'll look at:

• Why you lose control and how to regain it
• The origins of self-control in your brain
• Recognising how stress, tiredness, and distraction stop you taking control
• Retraining your brain to take action
• I'll also share my experiences with impulse buying & how I stop myself

We'll discuss the small steps that add up to a big change.

Prefer to watch this episode on YouTube? You can watch it here.

Citations
Kelly McGonigal - The Willpower Instinct

Another podcast for you: 10 Ways to Overcome Anxiety

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Christmas can bring up stress in ways that feel confusing and unexpected.

Even when life feels stable, family time can activate old patterns, roles, and emotional responses that belong to much earlier chapters of our lives.

In this Christmas episode, somatic psychotherapist Shelley Treacher explores why family stress often intensifies at Christmas, how the nervous system remembers familiar environments, and why slowing down can feel surprisingly difficult at this time of year.

The episode includes a short public-domain fable, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, as a gentle reflection on safety, stimulation, and why calm matters. Shelley also shares personal reflections on learning to slow down, noticing urgency in the body, and how regulation often begins in very small steps.

This episode is for anyone who feels more reactive, tired, or unsettled around family at Christmas. Also for you if you want a compassionate, body-based understanding of what’s happening.

Here's another Christmas episode you may relate to: The Pressure to be Cheerful at Christmas. A Real Talk Christmas Podcast

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Want to see if we're a good fit for working together?
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Feeling overwhelmed is not a sign of weakness or over-sensitivity. It’s your body trying to protect you. 

In this episode, I guide you through three easy somatic exercises for overwhelm. Each one helps you regulate your nervous system and feel safe again. You’ll come home to your body and the support beneath you, so you can feel clearer and stronger.

You can use this episode when:
 • You feel overwhelmed or flooded
 • You’re stressed, anxious, or overloaded
 • You’ve been holding everything together for too long
 • You need a moment to feel comforted and connected again

💚 Shelley
 Somatic Psychotherapist, BACP Senior Accredited
https://www.bristolcounselling.co.uk/stress-anxiety-podcasts/

Your next episode: Coping with Anxiety: 10 Somatic Ways to Calm Overthinking

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Want to see if we're a good fit for working together?
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