5: Ancient Wisdom: Modern Science with Michelle Hammond - Episode 55: Ancient Wisdom: Modern Science with Michelle Hammond - Episode 5
UK Health Radio Podcast
Michelle Hammond reflects on feeling wired, tired and emotionally stretched, including her own experience of perimenopause, and links stress to deeper disconnection. She offers gentle, body-based practices and small everyday shifts to help people feel a bit calmer, more grounded and more like themselves again.
24:33•16 Apr 2026
Wired, Tired and Human: Michelle Hammond on Overwhelm, Perimenopause and Finding Your Feet Again
Episode Overview
- Feeling overwhelmed or anxious is a normal response to a demanding world, not a sign that you are broken or failing.
- Regulate your body and breath before trying to solve problems, so you respond from steadiness rather than panic.
- Use simple physical practices – like slow breathing, shoulder rolls, jaw release and feeling your feet on the ground – to calm the nervous system.
- Think in micro moments of recovery by taking just a few minutes for quiet, rest or fresh air throughout the day.
- Reduce unnecessary input and seek small, genuine moments of connection to ease the sense of isolation and strain.
“If you've been feeling overwhelmed, anxious, a little out of sorts, remember you are not failing and you are absolutely not broken.”
What drives someone to seek a calmer, kinder way of living in such a loud, fast world? This solo session with Michelle Hammond lands right in that question, speaking to anyone who feels wired, tired, and just about holding it together. Rather than interviewing a guest, Michelle shares her own recent experience of feeling overwhelmed, including the emotional turbulence of perimenopause.
She talks candidly about "functional fake-aholics" – people who look fine on the outside but are quietly running on fumes – and admits she's been there too. That honesty makes this episode feel like a chat with a wise friend rather than a lecture. Drawing on Chinese medicine and modern science, she explains how emotions move through the body and how stress often masks something deeper: disconnection from ourselves, each other, rest, and nature.
You’ll hear simple, grounded practices woven into the conversation – like lengthening the out-breath, gently rolling the shoulders, unclenching the jaw, feeling the feet on the floor, and taking “micro moments of recovery” that last just three minutes. Michelle also offers five practical steps for those days when everything feels too much: regulate before you try to fix things, move your body, reduce input, and seek small moments of real human connection.
She keeps it light with touches of humour – including screaming along the motorway as a stress release – while still holding space for anxiety, grief, fear, and exhaustion. This episode speaks to anyone on a healing journey, including people in alcohol or addiction recovery who recognise the strain of being constantly "on". The key message? You are not failing and you are not broken; you're simply responding to a world that is, as Michelle puts it, "a lot".
Could one small change today help you feel a little more like yourself again?
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