Eat & Breathe Well

Written By Pamela Strand

December 1, 2025

🍂 Dear, Friend,

In November, we continued our conversation about helping the body build back what stress takes away. This “restoring the body” theme began in October, when we explored how stress shows up in the body — and how rest, sleep, and restorative movement help clear stress and support the body’s natural ability to repair, rebuild, and replenish.

(If you’d like a refresher, you can find last month’s newsletter here)

This past month, we turned our attention to two more anchors of recovery: nutrition and breath — simple, everyday ways we can support our nervous system and help the body return to balance.

Restoring the Body Through Nutrition

Recovery from stress is an energy-intensive process. The body depends on us to supply the nutrients, hydration, and balance it needs to:

  • repair tissues

  • reduce inflammation

  • rebalance stress hormones

  • clear stress by-products

  • support cognitive steadiness and emotional well-being

Macronutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) each play essential roles. Hydration supports circulation and helps move nutrients where they need to go while carrying waste products away.

Just as important as what we eat is how we eat.

Eating in a relaxed state allows the digestive system to do its work. Being mindful as we eat helps us hear the body’s signals: hungry, full, tired, thirsty. And the timing of meals matters too — especially in relation to sleep. Because sleep is our recovery rockstar, finishing meals 3–4 hours before bedtime can make a meaningful difference in the quality of our sleep.

And as we explored together, nutrition can also become a stressor. Under- or over-consuming calories, dehydration, relying on highly processed foods, drinking alcohol, or over-emphasizing one nutrient while neglecting others can all burden the body and make it harder to build back what stress takes away.

Learning to nourish ourselves with awareness becomes an act of support — a quiet way of saying to the body, I’m on your side.


Restoring the Body Through Breath

Breath was the second pillar of this month’s work — and perhaps the most accessible tool we have.

Slow, gentle, full breaths drawn through the nose and led by the diaphragm activate the lower lobes of the lungs, where “rest and digest” nerve endings live. This kind of breathing tells the body:

“The threat is over. It’s safe to restore.”

Recovery breathing:

  • eases muscle tension

  • supports digestion

  • calms and clarifies the mind

  • anchors us in the present moment

This is the natural way we were designed to breathe, and science suggests it is the healthiest way. Yet modern life — sitting, screens, speed, constant stimulation — pulls many of us into stress breath: fast, shallow, and chest-driven. And usually through the mouth. 

The good news is that our breath is always with us. With awareness and practice, we can guide it back toward what is natural, healthy, and restoring.

A few minutes of recovery breathing each day can train the body to soften and settle. And small moments add up:

  • A minute or two of diaphragmatic breathing creates a rest break in your day.

  • A few gentle breaths before a meal support digestion.

  • A simple breathing ritual before bed prepares the body for sleep.

Breath can be woven into almost any recovery practice — it’s that powerful.

A Practice to Support You

Here is a meditation to support you this month — one that nourishes the heart as the body restores:

👉 Cultivating Compassion for Yourself and Others — click to open the practice on my Insight Timer profile. (It may take a few moments for the app to load the practice.)

This Loving-Kindness meditation gently guides you to experience compassion from within and then extend it outward. It’s a simple, heartfelt practice that helps soften stress, steady the nervous system, and grow a sense of warmth and connection — especially meaningful when the world feels hurried or heavy.

While you’re on Insight Timer, I invite you to explore my other meditations and breathing practices. Each one offers another way to support your body in building back what stress takes away.


Coming Up in the Strong Heart Community

In December, we begin a new theme:

✨ The Sacredness of Slow in the Season of Go✨

While nature encourages us toward quiet and stillness, our calendars and to-do lists often do the opposite. This month in the Strong Heart Community, we’ll explore how to “stay slow” when the world speeds up — through boundaries, intentional choices, and practices that bring us back to center.

We also have another special music collaboration with Sharon West to support the theme.

If you want stillness and calm to be part of your holiday season, we’d love to welcome you inside the community. You can learn more about the Strong Heart Community here.

If you are already a member, be sure to visit your quiet oasis throughout the month. 

May your December hold pockets of stillness and calm.

Warmly,
Pam
Strong Heart Wellness


P.S. I’ve gathered all past Strong Heart Notes into an easy-to-access archive — you can find it here. 

If you bookmark the page, it becomes a place you can return to whenever life feels heavy or you’re longing for a moment of stillness and calm.



Pamela Strand
Next

Restoring the Body