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| Guilty Pleasures Back to Enhancing Your Power Supply |
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| by Jennifer Bloome | |||
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We all know how to treat ourselves better than we do. Sure, we could eat better, get more sleep, drink more water,
exercise more, expand our knowledge, and help more people. But who has the time? Between car pools, executive
meetings, and grocery shopping, all the spare moments of the day are gone. What do you give up to treat yourself
better? Clearly you wouldn’t want to say to your son “sorry there’s nothing in the house for lunch Johnny, but
Momma just needed a little time to herself.” Surely there are some domestic goddesses out there in the world who can take care of all the mundane and important details of their lives maintaining a sunny disposition all the while. Remember the perfume ad “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you’re a man….’cause I’m a woman.” Domestic goddess at her best: she can work, feed the family, AND have the energy left over to improve her relationship with her man. She probably has good hair days all the time, too. | |||
| More from Jennifer Bloome | |||
| However, this is not what real women face. Our time is crunched and we get irritable, live with pounding
headaches, insomnia, gastrointestinal distress, perhaps even a general malaise. None of these symptoms are enough
to knock us down or out, but can make us not feel like ourselves and make the daily activities frustrating.
Somewhere along the line we decided that these minor ailments were just a part of life; they aren’t a symptom
of anything, just something we must live with. But at what cost?
What is the cost to our family if we live with the by-products of a busy schedule where we don’t have time to care for ourselves? How much relationship do we lose with our significant other or our children when we are too tired for that l ate night talk, the special craft project, or playing catch out in the yard? What do we sacrifice by only half-listening because life “has us down today” or because our back or head aches? How much time do we waste by telling our stories of woe? How much of ourselves do we lose when everyone else’s needs come first? What lessons are we teaching our children? Maybe the costs are too high. |
Why Self-Care? Laying the Foundation for Wellness A Brick in the Foundation: Social Support A Brick in the Foundation: Physical Health A Brick in the Foundation: Emotional Health Holiday Markers A Brick in the Foundation: Environmental Health A Brick in the Foundation: Spirituality A Brick in the Foundation: Intellectual Health |
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| The Bad News Our bodies are programmed to listen to the messages we send them. When we continuously run on high, our bodies respond by continuously producing the chemical messengers that instruct the body to “keep it up.” These chemical messengers work by increasing heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and metabolism. Glucose gets dumped into our blood stream to provide a continual energy source. These are important functions and a fantastic biologic mechanism — for the short-term. This system was never intended for long-term use. Over time, these systems get overworked and wear down our bodies. This is when the physical complaints begin – backaches, neck aches, insomnia, general achiness, and migraines. Our thinking gets fuzzy, keys are lost, and appointments are missed. We start to feel a disconnect from what is really important. Our most significant problem is that we never tell our bodies, “okay, you’ve done a great job today, and now I’m done so you can turn off and repair.” We just continually pack our days, giving our bodies more and more work. We demand our bodies to do more and more and more. The result? A body that starts sending out cries for help that we tend to medicate away. More ibuprofen please! The Good News Our bodies are programmed to listen to the messages we send them. Sound familiar? All our bodies are looking for is the message to “shut down and go home”, just for a bit. We don’t have to live with the pounding headaches, insomnia, gastrointestinal distress, irritability or general malaise. The trick is that we need to let our bodies shut down on a regular basis. A two-week vacation is great – until you get home. How many times have you had time away, only to find that the next day you are in the rat race all over again? What you need is a regular time of self-care, of time just for you. Take 20 minutes sometime during the day to let go of the daily lists and activities and just be. This can be as simple as:
The Analysis Does the thought of taking 20 minutes to yourself still seem selfish? Remember, when our bodies are taxed to the limit, we CAN’T take care of others the way we would like. Given all of the costs, do we really have the time to not take time for self-nurturing? |
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