The Science of Feeling Safe: Gentle Practices to Regulate Chronic Stress with Ann Diment
Release Date: 12/04/2025
MCAS vs Histamine Intolerance Why Your Body Reacts to Everything (And You’re Not Crazy)
Dear body, I’m listening
“A reaction is not a moral failure— it's information. Your body is just responding to something, and right now it's giving you signals that it doesn't want that or it needs some extra help.” —Donna Piper When every meal feels like a risk and symptoms seem to come out of nowhere, it can start to feel like the body has turned against us. Many in the chronic illness community are stuck between labels like “histamine intolerance” and “MCAS” while still getting no clear plan or validation. This conversation names what is happening in the body and why it is not “all in...
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Rest Without Guilt (When Your Worth Got Tied to Output)
Dear body, I’m listening
“Rest isn't a character flaw. It's what your body needs in order to heal from these invisible illnesses. And for some of us, it's also a grief process, because we're not just resting from task; we’re resting from the version of ourselves who thought we had to earn love through output.” —Donna Piper Ep 36 Shownotes: Podcast Platforms We talk about rest like it is simple, but for many bodies it brings guilt, fear, and shame. When worth gets tied to productivity, stopping can feel dangerous even when the body is breaking down. This conversation meets the tension...
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Is It POTS? When Standing Up Feels Like a Trap
Dear body, I’m listening
“You're not making it up. You're not weak, you're not failing. Your body is working hard to keep you upright, and you deserve support that matches the reality of that.” —Donna Piper Standing up should not require strategy, recovery time, or mental math. When heart rate spikes, dizziness hits, and showers wipe us out, the hardest part is not the symptom. It is being told nothing is wrong while our body says otherwise. Donna shares lived experience with POTS, dysautonomia, and multiple comorbidities, blending physiology with trauma-informed insight. Her work is shaped by years...
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Traveling with Chronic Illness: Germany Edition
Dear body, I’m listening
“If you're traveling with chronic illness, I want you to hear me. There is nothing wrong with you. You just have to prepare a little bit. You deserve to travel in a way that doesn't punish you, that helps you, that makes you feel good.” —Donna Piper Travel takes more out of the body than most people admit. For those living with chronic illness, the cost shows up before the suitcase is even packed. Energy drains through lines, noise, time pressure, swelling, and the fear of crashing far from home. Donna shares her real-time approach to spending a month in Germany while...
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Pack, Move, Fly, Heal: Why I’m Choosing Germany for Lipedema Surgery
Dear body, I’m listening
“Movement and less pain is why I'm doing this and why I've chosen to go to Germany.” —Donna Piper Big life changes rarely wait their turn. When health decisions collide with exhaustion, logistics, and uncertainty, clarity matters more than certainty. Donna shares the personal and medical reasoning behind traveling to Germany for lipedema surgery while managing multiple chronic conditions. This episode traces how lived experience, failed conservative treatments, and the need for long-term care shaped a choice rooted in mobility, pain reduction, and nervous system safety. Press play...
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Lipedema Surgery Vs. Non-Surgical Care… Do I Have To Choose?
Dear body, I’m listening
“Anything you choose is not weakness. It's the best for you… Instead of thinking surgery or no surgery, try this question: ‘What would make my next step safer?’... Safety is a step, not a switch.” —Donna Piper Pressure around medical choices can turn care into panic. When the body is complex and money, time, and fear are involved, certainty starts to feel like a deadline. This conversation slows that moment down and gives it room to breathe. In this episode, Donna shares her lived experience navigating lipedema and the long road of conservative care, research, and...
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Hot Flashes, Heavy Legs: Lipedema Meets Perimenopause & Menopause
Dear body, I’m listening
“Lipedema is not a willpower issue. Shame is not a treatment plan. Late diagnosis does not mean late reality. It means late recognition. Your best advocate is yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. You've just been navigating a body that hasn't been understood by the medical world yet. Be gentle with your capacity. Meet yourself where you are.” —Donna Piper Bodies can change in ways that do not follow the rules we were taught. Pain, swelling, and heaviness show up, and the explanations never quite fit. Many women carry this quietly for years, assuming it is just weight or age....
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How Trauma Rewrites Pain Part 4: Flare or Trauma Response? When the Body’s Signals Get Confusing
Dear body, I’m listening
“Flares and trauma responses often look the same because fascia remembers, the nervous system protects, and the immune system overreacts to help defend itself, and the body is trying to keep you alive, not confused. So your job isn't to decode perfectly. Your job is to offer safety consistently, because when the body feels safe, the symptoms soften, and when the symptoms soften, the story changes, and when the story changes, the healing becomes possible.” —Donna Piper The body can shift from steady to overwhelmed without warning, leaving confusion about what just took over. Pain,...
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Transformation Boundaries: Protect Energy And Design A Purposeful Life with Didi Selwa
Dear body, I’m listening
“Move forward, take action. It may happen, it may not, but it's just about putting one step in front of the other— doing that is so important. When you go forward, you realize, ‘oh, that's not for me’, but in the process, you discover what is.” —Didi Selwa Drop the guilt of being stuck and discover a movement that meets your body where it is. Press play to hear how embodiment, faith, and small practical steps shift shame, chronic illness limits, and stalled dreams into forward motion. Didi Selwa went from a 25-year banking career to a Certified Transformational Life...
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The Science of Feeling Safe: Gentle Practices to Regulate Chronic Stress with Ann Diment
Dear body, I’m listening
"We are the experts in our well-being and our own bodies, and it's important for us to advocate for ourselves. We're not defined by our past. Our past is gone. It's in the past, and the beliefs we formed about ourselves based on what we've been told by other people or experienced in the past aren't necessarily true." —Ann Diment Some seasons of life push us past our limits, and the body keeps score long before we understand why. Many of us try to outwork the chaos, yet the real shift begins when we finally question the version of resilience we were taught to admire. There is a quieter...
info_outline"We are the experts in our well-being and our own bodies, and it's important for us to advocate for ourselves. We're not defined by our past. Our past is gone. It's in the past, and the beliefs we formed about ourselves based on what we've been told by other people or experienced in the past aren't necessarily true." —Ann Diment
Some seasons of life push us past our limits, and the body keeps score long before we understand why. Many of us try to outwork the chaos, yet the real shift begins when we finally question the version of resilience we were taught to admire. There is a quieter kind of strength that lets us breathe again and rebuild without losing ourselves.
Anne Diment learned this after years in science, health and safety, caregiving, chronic burnout, and a late ADHD diagnosis that reframed her entire story. Her work now blends coaching, EFT tapping, and creative practices to help people unlearn survival mode and create space for healing that feels humane and sustainable.
Press play for a grounded conversation that meets our whole humanity, not just our symptoms.
In this episode, we explore:
• burnout that hides in plain sight
• late diagnosis and the emotional impact of reframing a lifetime
• ADHD, menopause, and the biology that shapes daily capacity
• creative practices that regulate the nervous system
• EFT tapping for stress, hypervigilance, and chronic pain
• safety, acceptance, and the beliefs that keep us stuck
• the pressure of productivity and the truth about energy budgeting
• purpose, identity, and the healing power of creative community
Connect with Donna:
Website: https://www.donnapiper.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnapiper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedonnapiper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedonnapiper
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedonnapiper
Episode Highlights:
03:08 Meet Ann: An Unexpected Career Pivot
09:19 Ne Burnout, Inequities in Healthcare, and the ADHD Discovery
14:57 How EFT Tapping Works
23:43 Medical Gaslighting and Weight-Centric Bias in Healthcare
31:00 How Stress Quietly Destroys Health- Global Research Insights
37:35 Energy Budgeting and the Invisible Load of Neurodivergent Households
47:45 Purpose, Identity, and Chronic Illness
55:49 Turning the Tables on Burnout
Resources:
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Get Ann’s bestselling book 'Turning the Tables on Burnout”: https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=gvySIs4XWG8fxoLncYMKYHFORZRWooquDSZZLvWvATd.
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Join the 'Confident You-Raw Conversations' book launch team: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/form/ExZIREmDFkcHbkjAppa9
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Redefine resilience, create calm, and beat burnout: https://www.resilience-rebel.com/
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Want to talk about how Ann can support you? Book a Call: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/booking/3wrxrRJIh7CAVnPq7Tc3
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All of Ann’s Creative links: https://linktr.ee/anndimentartist
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Buy Art Card and Prints: https://lovefromtheartist.com/Artists/glastonbury/ann-diment
- Listen to the Creating Resilience Podcast: https://anchor.fm/ann-diment-changemaker
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Burnout isn’t a personal failure—it’s your body asking for a softer way forward. Listen in as Donna and Turning the Tables on Burnout author, Ann Diment, unpack safety, acceptance, menopause, ADHD, and the healing power of creativity.
#DearBodyImListening #MCAS #Lymphedema #Lipedema #ChronicIllness #ResilienceReDefined #EFTTapping #MentalHealthMatters #BurnoutRecovery #NervousSystemHealing #TraumaInformedLiving #NeurodivergentWomen #HealingJourney #ADHDWomen #MenopauseSupport
Quotes:
05:53 "I thought, I'm done— I'm done with the hustle, done with the traveling, the stress." —Ann Diment
06:45 "I could see the benefits of expressing yourself through the creative arts—music, arts, poetry, dance—all these things that help people regulate themselves and express themselves in a safe way." —Ann Diment
11:30 "Our sense of safety can fool us, because you might feel safe, but that could be codependency, and that isn't really healthy." —Ann Diment
12:00 "The damage caused by adverse childhood experiences, trauma can reduce your life expectancy by about 20 years because of this toxic stress that manifests in your body." —Ann Diment
12:37 "I didn't realize that I was in that hyper-vigilant state from a very young age. So to keep myself safe, before I was aware all this, there'd be people pleasing, there'd be avoidance of conflict, there'd be putting your own needs last— that is a tick box for a burnout." —Ann Diment
18:39 "I do come from a prevalence that everything my body does, even though it has all these things I don't always want, is doing everything to protect me. We create safety to survive." —Donna Piper
26:08 "There is no medical research on specifically women and girls until 2017— that's eight years ago, so all the DSM diagnostic criteria are based on men and boys." —Ann Diment
32:16 "Stress kills around three-quarters of a million people globally, which means that lost years of quality living are due to chronic illness caused by stress. And it's entirely preventable." —Ann Diment
36:27 "Acceptance is the key to keeping your beautifully creative, problem-solving brain online instead of going into survival mode." —Ann Diment
42:13 “It's not our personality. It's our biology.” —Ann Diment
43:08 “Whether you're a mom or a worker or a wife or all these things, or how much you actually want to do, or did do, or have done, like all of those things kind of come down to accepting the moment that you're in with what is presenting in front of you. With your biology, you need something different that's maybe not normative.” —Donna Piper
47:08 “One of the symptoms of ADHD is you can't rest. You're constantly doing something. When I'm being creative, you can be hyper focused on something because you're just in the flow.” —Ann Diment
50:09 “Lots of adults feel they're not creative, but I say, Well, you are creative. You just don't accept that. How do you style your hair? How do you dress? How do you put the food on your plate? It's all making creative decisions. There are lots of ways that you're being creative.” —Ann Diment
57:41 "We are the experts in our well-being and our own bodies, and it's important for us to advocate for ourselves. We're not defined by our past. Our past is gone. It's in the past, and the beliefs we formed about ourselves based on what we've been told by other people or experienced in the past aren't necessarily true." —Ann Diment
Connect with Ann:
Ann Diment is the bestselling author of "Turning the Tables on Burnout," with over 20 years of experience in the Health, Safety, and Wellbeing sector, and is in the top 1% of IOSH members, holding Fellowship status for over 10 years.
Drawing from her personal journey with cPTSD and other mental health challenges, Ann has pioneered a creative and mindful approach to stress and resilience training through her socially engaged art practice.
Recently diagnosed with ADHD, Ann has added a CPD-certified ADHD support practitioner certification to her wide-ranging skill set to provide specialised support for neurodivergent clients.
As an ambassador for ADHD UK and the Institute of Personalised Care, Ann advocates for personalised care and neurodiversity awareness. She also trains NHS health coaches, judges international safety awards, and mentors global safety leaders.
Beyond her professional endeavours, Ann is a multifaceted artist, poet, and musician, infusing her work with creativity and passion. Her vibrant approach and dedication to wellbeing make her a dynamic force in the field.
Website: https://www.resilience-rebel.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-diment-changemaker/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/resiliencerebel/