Back To Basics

Time to read: Short and immediately actionable

Eat your vegetables!

One of my coaching groups was talking about stress this morning. As the group outlined the strategies they use to manage stress and regulate mood, our 90-minute call sent us right back to the basics.

It's so easy to forget that managing stress is fundamentally a physical exercise. Meaning, it's about your body and soothing your nervous system. The list of strategies we created was so good, I wanted to share them with you.

You won't be surprised. You will be reminded of what's actually effective to manage stress:

  • Exercise (move your body!)
  • A healthy diet (eat your veggies!)
  • Sleep (rest and recover!)
  • Meditation (so soothing for the nervous system!)
  • Focus on process over outcome (become unattached!)
  • Know what is yours to own and what is not (discern and let things go!)

It's that simple. Move your body and eat vegetables. Oh, and sleep. Doesn't it seem like these are the answers to everything?

Have a great time playing with these this weekend!

Invite your friends to join for the fun weekly challenge that will run this summer (aka: this newsletter in challenge form). They can join the summer challenge by signing up for this newsletter here.

 

Back to Basics

Time to read: 45 seconds

My home yoga studio

My home yoga studio

Last week, I saw anxiety at 3:00 am more nights than I care to count. As I lay in bed, yet again, I noticed that I had allowed my physical self-care to slide. Yoga fell off the radar. Cookies were a nightly snack. (If I'm honest, they were a morning, afternoon and nightly snack.) And clearly, sleep was elusive. Let's just say, my family noticed the slide, too.

So, this week, I committed to bring back the basics - nutrition, exercise, sleep, and mindfulness. I set up a one-week experiment.

My hypothesis: If I do basic things to take care of myself, I will feel calmer and sleep better.

Here are my commitments for this week:

  • yoga 3x
  • meditation 3x
  • no sugar
  • daily walks
  • gardening

I'm a couple of days in and so far, so good. What physical practice belongs on your list of commitments this weekend?

Lastly, hold your goals loosely.

  • 20 minutes of yoga? Time to celebrate!
  • You might narf a piece of lemon cream cake if your daughter wants to get dessert for her family time choice. I don't know anything about that.
  • 5-minutes of meditation? Yay you!
  • Planting one plant counts as gardening.

See? Easy peasy if you keep your expectations low.

I'm going to hit that yoga mat covered in cat hair right now.

Your calm resilience is more basic and easier than you might think.

To your well-being!

Christina

P.S. Here are two free resources to help you and yours during this challenging time. Spread them around and enjoy!

1. Rebels at Home Challenge: This challenge is a series of eight 3-minute daily video exercises to uplift you and help you find your place in this global pandemic. And it will give you something new to talk about at your next Zoom happy hour. Sign up here.

2. The Unconventional Guide to Working from Home: This is a downloadable pdf of practical tips and big picture strategies to help you be efficient, focused and effective at home. Click to download the pdf here.