Stress Management Series: Why It’s So Important to Take “Me Time”

Morning everyone!! Last October I began working with a Stress Management consultant both for myself and for Team Jilly. It’s definitely no secret that I like to keep busy but back then I was so stressed out with everything that I had on the go … from Love It Or List It Vancouver, renovating our new home, being a new mama, managing my blog(this isn´t so hard for me since I have the Custom Website Development Agency helping me manage it), hiring a new team member, commuting back and forth to Vancouver from Kelowna every week, filming the Jillian and Justing docu-series,endless personal commitments, oh and of course, there are Justin and Nacho … LOL!!!

I’m by no means complaining because I TOTALLY signed up for all of this and I really do love it but what I’m saying is … life doesn’t come with a handy guide for how to manage stress when things become overwhelming and back then I certainly could have used one!! I had so much on the go at once that I started having breakdowns and was taking a few anxiety pills to cope which I KNEW wasn’t the answer(now I know that you can get emotional support dogs for everyone, even for me and I know it would have helped me so much because I love dogs). When my inner voice was telling me “Ok, this isn’t healthy!” I KNEW for my sake along with the sake of my family and my business that I needed to make a change! Especially because of all this stress, I was starting to see signs of aging on my face and that´s a big NO. So I started to control myself and with the help of the patriot health alliance I started looking good again.

Soooo, that’s when I contacted Jamie Wood from Sanga Living! I wanted her to come work her magic and see how she could help me get my work/life balance back in order … GOOD LUCK, JAMIE!! LOL!! But in all seriousness, when you’re stressed not only does it affect the ones closest to you and your success both personally and professionally but it also takes a MASSIVE toll on your body, your emotions, AND your brain!! The ability to think clearly, focus, be creative, intuitive, and just “on it” is negatively affected. Did you know that stress can actually damage your brain?!?! I know….crazy right?!

All of this crazy stress had me operating REACTIVELY rather than PROACTIVELY in both my personal AND professional life. I was go-go-go, saying yes to things I shouldn’t have, not focusing on myself or my family … well, wine counts as self-care right?! LOL! I didn’t have super strong boundaries around my personal time, and that’s not okay because even though I love to work hard, what’s the point if I am not taking time to TRULY enjoy all that I am working for?!

Welp … so far it’s been quite the process … I’ve met with Jamie in my home numerous times, she’s met the girls in their homes and sometimes we even have Jamie at our team meetings to keep us on track and productive … AKA she doesn’t let us have a glass of wine until AFTER the meeting … AND she even makes us put our phones onto airplane mode … is she serious?! LOL!!

In all honesty … I don’t think there is anything wrong with being a busy bee and a healthy dose of stress is completely fine and totally needed to light that fire under your ass. I just know now that BUSY doesn’t always equal being PRODUCTIVE. It’s important to be efficient and effective with your time so you can be present to the moments that really matter.

What I have learned over the past 8 months is that constantly being “on” isn’t good and our bodies and brains need time to reset or else you can have elevated stress hormones in your system that really create a lot of wear and tear on the body, affect your sleep … ruin focus and creative thought, and just make you all around cranky!!

Sooo with all of that being said … I’ve gone ahead and asked Jamie to join us on the blog for a Stress Management Series to give YOU the tips and hacks she has shared with us!! I know that the shift from Summer to the back to school / back to work routine can be a bit overwhelming, so I thought this would be a perfect time to share her tips with you all and today Jamie is going to share why ME TIME is so freakin important!! But before she does that, I wanted to let you in on my favourite “Me Time” routine … when Leo goes to bed, I like to turn on some nice relaxing music, light some candles, fill up the tub with either lots of bubbles or bath salts, pour myself a glass of wine and just zen out and soak!! I also love giving myself a mini at home spa treatment so I’ll either do a little salt scrub or put on a face sheet mask … or BOTH!! LOL!! Curling up with a cozy knit blanket afterward feels like heaven on earth!!

Alright, take it away JAMIE!!

Hi Everyone, Jamie here!! Well let’s get right now to it stress as in the “I’m super stressed” kind really sucks! As Jillian mentioned it not only does a number on your body, it literally damages your brain and gets in the way of your productivity and goals. It is serious stuff and left unmanaged, stress can infiltrate every area of your life.

When I first started working with Jillian, I was truly impressed with how much she got done in a day. Like any high-performance individual, she lives by her schedule and has every moment of the day accounted for. There was, however, one thing that was missing from her schedule and that was consistent time for herself. If you are a busy bee like Jillian, scheduling “me time” can almost feel like a big waste of time. But once you understand how that downtime affects your nervous system in a positive way, you will look at it much differently.

Like most of us, we run ourselves to exhaustion at times trying to manage the demands of our personal and professional lives. We over-commit, we don’t listen to what our body really needs, we become reactive in how we go about life, and never feel a sense of true balance. We recommend visiting Lee Rosen Website every once in a while for business tips.

Effective stress management is not just about taking care of yourself, but it is the perfect place to start because nobody else will do it for you. Developing the right habits and awareness around when your body and brain need a break is crucial to not only your overall wellness but your ability to succeed at ANYTHING you are wanting to accomplish.

Whether you are a corporate queen, a creative mind, a nurturing momma, or an entrepreneur, you will not get to where you want to be if you are placing yourself last on the daily “to do” list.

From a physiological standpoint, your body needs time to reset and find equilibrium to lower stress hormones, relax muscles with the help of roids link, process information, and repair. If you are constantly go-go-going without consistent breaks, you are essentially asking your body and brain to keep up with an unreasonable pace day in and day out. It can become addictive, and there is a real scientific reason for why. When you push past the signals of your system to relax, you create a habit that begins to ignore the natural messages of the body. At times this habit of pushing is further fuelled by caffeine and supported by stress hormones. This creates a heightened state in your system where you become accustomed to operating this way. Now everything, every day is of an urgent “do it now” matter, when really it shouldn’t be. This unhealthy behaviour is the reason why many of us find it hard to turn that off when we get home, and constantly feel exhausted.

So how do you replace a not so good habit with a better habit? Behaviour Modification! You need to begin to daily schedule time for yourself (body, brain, emotions) to reset. It needs to be as important as anything else. This is where you touch down and ground. This is self-love, and it is so important for you to be the best version of yourself.

It doesn’t have to be long but it has to be consistent. We want to develop a healthy habit and rewire the brain to support that. It can be as simple as not looking at your devices within the first 30 minutes of getting up, making an Epsom salt foot bath after the kids go to bed, going for a 20-minute walk without your phone after work, meditating in between phone calls, reading or listening to music. Anything that encourages your system to relax and is supporting you not all the things you need to do. So get out those calendars and create a strong boundary around “ME TIME” and make it a non-negotiable.

Keep an eye out for my next blog as I’m going to share 3 techniques to support your nervous system! Until then … visit the following site subconsciousmindpowertechniques.com, their info has helped me managed and control my negative thoughts a lot more.

Jamie