Give yourself a break! 10 signs it's time to put your feet up!

Photo credit to Conquer The Clouds (Trees of the Cloud Forest, Oaxaca, Mexico)

Sometimes you don't know when it's time to stop and relax. Take a small break to recharge. You all have an inner feeling about when things are too much, or overwhelming, but some of you just ignore these feelings and press on. The problem with forcing yourselves to go on even though you feel your emotional resolve weakening is that it makes you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. Letting yourselves take a break from your daily routines, a challenging project or task is healthy and will let you return with more vigor afterwards.

Here are 10 signs you may be exhibiting that signal it's time for a break (even just a little one). 
 
1. You're drawing blanks.

You can't seem to think straight, everything seems like a blur and you're frustrated. You have too many things on the go, and piling more on or pushing forward might be detrimental to your end goals. This is a definite sign you are overwhelmed and nearing a breaking point.

2. You're not scheduling sleep into your life. 

Cliché but, even Rome wasn't built in a day. You need to sleep in order to have energy to do the things you want. Sleep is the most basic restorative state you can enter. Denying yourself enough time to sleep and recharge your body is setting you up to fail as your energy wanes. If you aren't getting enough sleep because of insomnia then it could be a sign that you are overworking yourself.

3. Friends are something other people have.

I posted a while back about the power of friends as a buffer for low moods. These friends won't help you stay out of the gutter if you don't make time to see them. It's not a threat, just a reality. This is a sign that your life is out of balance and you need a break to re-connect with the people you care about. Even a quick coffee or lunch can make a big difference in your mood and energy levels.

4. You aren't taking the time to eat or nourish yourself.

If most of the crumbs from your daily meals are landing in places like your computer keyboard or between your car seats, or you find you don't even have time to eat, then you know it's time to slow down. Savouring a healthy meal and taking the time to appreciate the flavours goes a long way to preventing burnout. I'm not saying you should sit at the table, then proceed to shovel food into your mouths and then run off again, but actually taking thoughtful bites of each food and being present in the moment.

5.  You're not scheduling FUN into your life.

This one is a hard one to swallow... FUN is a nasty three-lettered word for overachievers and work-aholics. The very thought of spending time doing something enjoyable can feel scary to some who aren't used to taking a step back, taking a few deep-breaths and enjoying life. But if your life has gotten to the point where fun is being omitted on a regular basis, there is going to be a problem. This also goes for people suffering depression. In depression, the "fun-button" gets worn out and doesn't work anymore, things are really bleak and negative. But fun won't happen if you don't schedule something "fun" into your life. You may not have fun, but the trick is to just get into the habit of scheduling enjoyable activities in your life. Eventually you will start to feel a semblance of pleasure, and then start looking forward to those activities.

6. You aren't making time for exercise and fresh-air.

 Your schedule is so packed you go from one place to the next until you come home exhausted, fall into bed, all without ever going outside for a walk or a run or whatever sports you might enjoy. Combine this with number 4 and you have a recipe for disaster. We are animals and we need to move. Getting outside for even just a short brisk walk is enough to reap the benefits of our naturally-occurring feel-good chemicals: endorphins!

 7. Your body is starting to fall apart.

Your muscles are tense and painful, you're getting headaches frequently, or your stomach is constantly in knots. These are real physical signs that you're pushing too hard and need to slow down. If your days are plagued with physical ailments that are likely resulting from your hectic lifestyle, you definitely need a break it may be time to speak with your doctor about the effect of your stress on your body.

8. Your friends are telling you you're too busy.

Our friends and family often see situations more objectively than we do. If you are noticing that friends and family are saying things like "we never see you anymore" or "you're always too busy", then it's likely they're expressing true concern. Take note of their comments and re-assess your priorities.

9. You miss bill payments.

Your home office (or your kitchen counter!) is starting to look like a paper-version of Jenga... only with much more at stake than just a messy floor. Your bills are piling up and you haven't made time to sit down with them, crunch the numbers and get your finances in line. This is a costly side-effect of being too busy and not taking the time for all our obligations. It's also likely that your feelings of being overwhelmed make it hard to think about starting this task as well.

10. You're wishing for a snow-day.

The alarm goes off and the last thing you want to do is leave the bed. It could be the middle of July, but you're lying there wishing for a snow-day. Your brain is overwhelmed, you're dreaming of staying home, cuddling up on the couch to watch a movie, or clean your bathroom and have a tea. Whatever it is that you're dreaming of, it's a sign you need to take that well-deserved break.

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Other topics you may be interested in:

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Engine for Change - Motivation for self-relection and self-improvement.

Motivating and encouraging statements - Help yourself stay above the water!

Staying Motivated When Depressed; 5 Ways to Fight the Sludge of Depression/Anxiety!

 

Friends and Family: The Built-in Buffer

Today I will write about the power of friendship and the poison of isolation and how the balance between the two can make or break your mental health.
When someone is feeling down or out of sorts, they tend to develop an affinity for being alone. Unfortunately this is usually the opposite of what they should be trying to do!

It's almost as though they think it will get better if they just wait it out, stay in bed longer, sleep more, sleep-it-off, draw the blinds, and shut out the world... ignore reality.

But the world won't wait and it won't really ever go away. So you have to catch yourselves and pull yourselves out (in very serious situations medication may sometimes be needed but you must consult with your physician).

It can be really hard to find the motivation to do anything let alone get out of bed sometimes. And if you find yourself constantly stretched thin and weary, then perhaps you need to do some self-reflection. This is easiest when writing in your journal.

It helps you to connect with yourself, regain perspective, expose thoughts and desires or fears of recent (or past) events in your life that may be affecting you now... It's a great place to work through confusing life situations or help you with major decisions. (It's even really fun just to doodle sometimes).

Even though the most enticing thing could be to hole up in the basement and vegetate, maybe the better thing to do is pick up your phone and call your friends. Try to organize a small (or large!) social gathering. If you find that you have few or no friends, maybe it's time to join a club or a community center and expand on your interests. Staff at local recreation centers are usually pretty knowledgeable about what is happening in the community. You could even check your local newspapers, or see if the city website has anything going on.

It is hard to make friends, but when you have them, they are an important buffer for protecting your mental health. Family is also very important. All the positive social interactions you experience serve to help maintain a good state of mental health. Facebook has been taking place of real-life interactions and while in some cases this is a good stand-in (long-distance friend/relation-ships, while traveling, etc.), nothing really beats a face-to-face conversation.

 With that, I will leave you with a few small things to help you get motivated and start turning the downward spiral around:

- Try to make time for friends and family
- Join clubs/develop interests and skills
- Meet people (if you are shy, or have social anxiety, I will address these topics at a later date!)
- Write in your journals to self-reflect and re-connect with yourself; get grounded.
 

Conquer on!



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Other topics you may be interested in:
An engine for change... motivation for self-reflection and self-improvement 

Empowering yourself quickly: while coping with anxiety, job-searching or other life challenges. 

Breathing

Like little boats on a stream – practicing mindfulness everyday.

One of my favourite topics to read about and experiment with is mindfulness and meditative breathing. One of the most important imagery tools I've found involves disconnecting myself from my thoughts and just watching them as if they were seated on individual tiny boats floating along a stream. It's extremely grounding.

To practice this, find a quiet room and take a seat in a comfortable position and just feel yourself breathing (deep, abdominal breathing!). Try to see your thoughts as their own entities, floating by on boats. Do not engage the thoughts, just watch them. It will be difficult at first, you will find yourself analyzing why your friend said that thing the other night, or the argument you had with your partner this morning. When you notice that you have begun to engage the thought, gently bring yourself back to the shoreline by counting down from 10 slowly.

          Then stay again with the moment on the shoreline, watching but not boarding, all the thought-boats floating by.

It will be hard in the beginning as we are so used to just constantly thinking and over-thinking, ie: worrying. But the more you practice, the easier it will be to maintain a mindful state. This is only one aspect of attaining and seeking mindfulness in your life, but it’s helpful to think about your thoughts as things you can choose to think.

By imagining thoughts being physical beings, it makes it easier to push negative ones away. Pair this imagery-tool with the thought-monitoring concept. It will help you manage your anxious or depressing thoughts.

                                                                 Conquer on!

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Thought Monitoring

When you are depressed, it may seem as though your mood is uniformly down-in-the-dumps and low. It’s not, it rises and falls. You may not notice, however, as you are focused on the negative aspects of your life and situations. Also, when you are depressed, you are likely to fall into the downward-spiral trap making it even harder to notice the rises.

            You might not believe me that it rises, but if you think about it, maybe it’s a 2/10 right now, but earlier it was a 3/10. A good exercise for noticing when and what triggers your dropping mood, carry around a pen and pad of paper for a week and whenever you notice your mood dropping (even a little) write down what was going through your mind. It also helps to write down the situation in which you noticed the mood drop. You don’t need to wait for obvious traumatic experiences, just whenever you notice yourself feeling worse.

            Initially this might be frustrating as you draw blanks when questioning what was going through your mind – settle with answering in guesses “uhh... maybe I didn’t want to get bit by the dog I just saw”. That’s fine, work with the guesses for now – it gets you into the flow of noticing your thoughts and your feelings and how they correspond. Eventually it will get easier (as all things do with practice!). These automatic thoughts will gradually start to show themselves. You may start noticing a pattern (which will reveal some distorted beliefs you hold) as you recognize the same thoughts over and over – these are your primary negative automatic thoughts.

            If it gets too redundant to re-write the same thoughts, just put checks or x’s beside the thoughts and tally them up at the end of the week! You will then notice which of these automatic thoughts contribute the most to shaping your mood.

                                                                        Conquer on!



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