Shit I Do To Help Deal With Stress
I picked the perfect year to decide to have a baby. What’s a pregnancy without a side of pandemic? I’ve always had a few tricks to help me deal with stress but the added stress of pregnancy, being a business owner and dealing with a pandemic required me to shift how I handle it…
I picked the perfect year to decide to have a baby. What’s a pregnancy without a side of a pandemic? I’ve always had a few tricks to help me deal with stress but the added stress of pregnancy, being a business owner and dealing with a pandemic required me to shift how I handle it….no more bottle of wine to help me forget my troubles. Here’s a few things that are helping me get through this crazy year.
-Pomodoro Technique; this technique uses an timer to break down tasks (the original technique suggests setting a 25 minute timer, but I change this depending on the task at hand ) and get shit done, taking breaks every time the timer goes off. I love using this for the tasks that seem impossible(helllloooo 400+ emails after maternity leave), or cleaning up at home, meal planning, organizing my closet etc. Set the timer, pick a time that isn’t intimidating, if its for work I set the timer for around 23(not 25 I know I’m weird) minutes, if it’s something small like a quick kitchen clean up I’ll set the timer for 13 minutes. By the time the timer goes off I’m usually on such a roll that I keep working at the task, if it’s not already done. And once the timer goes off, If you feel you need a break, step away and take a 5 minute break.
-Music for the soul; At the beginning of the pandemic I sent out three different playlists to my newsletter(Miss my newsletter? Sign up here. ). I know how important music is to all of us, we all have a few songs that take us out of whatever we are feeling or experiencing and let us forget our worries….even if it’s only for a few minutes. Make a stress reducing playlist that helps put you in a better mood(my go to music app is Spotify).
To checkout my playlists click here: Chill Playlist , Shake it Playlist and Slay Playlist
-Movement; this has always been apart of my routine and it really helps calm my nerves. But I’ve had to adjust as I haven’t been in my gym since March, and I likely won’t be going back until 2021. Now it’s all about the at home workouts, and even just a quick 15 minute workout helps me temporarily forget that the world is on fire. Find something you love to do, it doesn’t have to be for a certain amount of time, or a certain level of intensity. Just get it done. Walk, jog(you’ll never see me do this, but I hear some people like it), jump on a trampoline, take a yoga class(virtual or in studio), follow a 10 minute YouTube video. There’s truly a workout for everyone and since we all have extra time, now is the perfect time to build a new routine. And you can always join me live every Tuesday/Thursday at 8am MST for bootylicious class or Saturday 9am MST for a tabata style classes(all classes are virtual via zoom). Sign up here.
-Prioritize and organize; We all have one area that we can improve on when it comes to organization. I have never been one to plan on my meals or make a set grocery list, but since I’ve had a baby I’m having to make this more of a priority. A quick 15 minutes planing out my meals, and snacks for the week helps my week go a hell of a lot smoother and prevents the “WTF should I eat, I’ll just grab Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A or whatever I can find at 7-Eleven” type of meal. Pick 2-3 things each week that are important to you, plan and schedule out how you’ll achieve them and let all the smaller things fall into place.
-Laugh with girlfriends; Just last week I had a stressful week trying to adjust to work and motherhood. It was Friday night, Illyana was asleep, Caesar was coaching a football game so I decided to take advantage of the quiet and get some work done. I was behind on my to do list and I wanted to catch up. My girlfriends texted “lets Houseparty”(an app where we can all video chat). I saw the text, I closed out….I kept working. A few more texts came through, “Lindsay can you do it now?” I picked up my phone and said yes, but wasn’t sure if I really wanted to. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, I was trying to get shit done but I said yes anyway. I hopped on the video chat, we talked, laughed about random ass shit(it’s normal for 35 year olds to stalk people from their high school on Facebook….right?). It was exactly the medicine I needed. I got off the call feeling lighter, happier and didn’t return to work for the rest of the evening. It was exactly what I needed to shift my mood. If Covid has taught us anything it’s to appreciate the little things, like the important people in your life. And texting is not the same as a a phone call so pick up the damn phone, and call your people.
Binge Eating: A Vicious Cycle
Binge Eating: A Vicious Cycle
I used to binge eat. Man, did I used to binge eat. For me, the pattern was severe restriction followed by insane levels of bingeing on all of the food I’d denied myself for days or weeks beforehand - food that was ‘junk’, ‘bad’ food, food that didn’t appear on whatever crazy diet plan I was following at the time. Pizza. Doritos. All the carbs.
Classic binge eating, I’ve since learned. You see, binge eating differs from overeating because of genuine hunger or emotional eating. Bingeing comes from trying to control yourself around food; instilling a discipline so strict that your inbuilt biological impulse to desire what you can’t have goes into overdrive and the result is a binge of epic proportions. Think ‘drowning in Popeyes Chicken boxes’ or ‘I think I’m actually going to puke’ levels. Been there, done it, puked on the t-shirt.
In my experience - and I appreciate everyone’s experience is different, but my friends and clients have led me to believe I’m not alone - binge eating is often triggered by diet mindset. And here’s the newsflash: YOU DON’T EVEN NEED TO BE ON A DIET TO SUFFER FROM DIET MINDSET Say what?
So let’s get this ‘diet mentality’ thing straight. Raise your hand if any of the following apply:
You have a tendency to divide foods into good and bad, right and wrong, hell YES and hell NO, never, never ever EVER.
Your food control strategies have been - and can still be, depending on which diet altar you’re currently worshipping at - compulsive and extreme: cutting out entire food groups, saving up calories for ‘treats’, periods of starvation, having a small group of ‘safe’ foods or meals that you can’t deviate from, obsessive measuring etc.
And when you fail on your (crazy strict, totally unsustainable and unrealistic) rules around food and binge big-style, you feel shame, guilt and embarrassment - I’m talking Catholic guilt on acid.
Sound familiar? There’s a lot of us diet mindset sufferers out there ;)
Emotional eating, which I mentioned above, is actually a pretty normal reaction to life, stress, hormones, whatever - and totally different from a full-on binge. Often if you’re locked into a diet mindset and obsessing over not being able to eat x (for me, x was always Doritos, but substitute your own equivalent), you’ll eat other stuff...and then eat some more...and then some more. Maybe if you’d just eaten the thing you wanted, you’d have had the damn bag of Doritos and the whole ordeal would be over. But with a binge, you end up overeating, the guilt kicks in, you make the vow to NEVER eat Doritos EVER again...and the whole sorry cycle begins all over again.
And there’s the rub. The thing with diet mindset? It’s boring. And oh-so predictable. You’re smarter than that. And you’re sure as hell worth more than that crappy circuit of restricting, bingeing and self-hatred.
Finally - and it took a long time, believe me - I came around to the idea that I didn’t need a new diet; I needed a new mindset. And I find that many of my clients have reached the same point before they reach out and get in touch about helping them reprogram their attitudes towards food.
Ready for something different? Check out my services page and see what LVL Holistics could do for you.