Prioritizing Rest
It’s been a ridiculously busy week and a half!
Exciting changes to announce are:
I am moving my services to a new location! Starting December 1st appointments can be made for the new location at the Northside Pharmachoice building at 231 Canada Street in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Moving forward, I’ll be my own business owner again. Billing and management of client services will be mine to work with moving forward.
I’m not alone and I’ll be making this change with two other colleagues.
With all this change came a period of intense work.
This wasn’t something that I was concerned about upfront. I’ve done this before and I had confidence I could get everything done in reasonable time, however, it had me running myself to the limit of my capacity for the first time in years.
The last time I started a company, I didn’t have a four year old, a family, or a house to maintain. Now I do. That makes a huge difference. Not only do I want to excel at this new venture, but I do not want my family to suffer as a result.
For about 10 days, I was getting little sleep and waking up well before 5am finding myself surprisingly energized to work on all the tasks that came along with starting a new venture, like: advertising, branding and website design, social media content, negotiating leases, buying materials, upholding regulatory and legal standards…the list goes on…and on…and on…but day after day it progressively got smaller (even though I added to it a few times).
Now, as I approach the last week of this transition, I’m realising the toll this has taken on my body.
I cannot speak for everyone’s ability to manage stress, but we know that biologically, our immune system is affected negatively by stress. Our body doesn’t really differentiate much between a wild bear attack and an approaching deadline. It’s always great to recognize your early warning signs of too much stress.
Mine include mental pitfalls such as forgetting to drink water or eat enough (or enough of the important stuff), irritability and lack of patience, increased anxiety, a general rushed attitude, and forgetting to communicate effectively with my loved ones.
The physical signs I notice include sleep interruptions and early waking patterns, tightness in my throat and chest, increased low back pain, hives on my arms and face, and increased heart rate.
Over the years, I’ve come to learn that if I don’t break myself out of this state soon enough, I’ll risk the delicate balance between heightened productivity and maintaining physical and mental health. I’ll develop anxiety and panic attacks, tension headaches, and other more serious mental and physical deficits that will take much longer to resolve than they took to aquire in the first place.
So how do I break myself out? How do I take effective rest?
This is the question I was faced with as I come to the end of a busy weekend of friends, family, and working…so I thought I would share the process.
Schedule what you need and hold yourself and others to that:
I typically take Monday’s off from client time, but I use this time to clean the house, food prep and self-care. I consider this sacred time and I try to protect it as much as possible. As such, tomorrow I am taking that time and blocking it off.
Tech free time:
I will fully admit that this is one of the hardest things for me to uphold for myself. I can often find a ‘very important reason’ to hold onto my phone, the most common being the need to respond to calls from my son’s daycare. That being said, I’m lucky to have a fantastic partner who can support me so I can truly have this space when I need it.
Nature time:
Spending time in trees, by water, and preferably with a campfire always leaves me feeling better than when I started. I get grounded and I’m able to calm myself to a point where I can see beyond the to-do's and timelines to a place of more overarching purpose.
High quality friend time:
You know yourself best, but for me this is dedicated 1-on-1 friend time either by phone or in person and ideally over a nice meal. I’ve scheduled myself 2 such occasions over the next week and I’m so looking forward to catching up with my buddies.
Bodywork:
As a Massage Therapist and Reiki Practitioner, I recognize the value of body work in helping to restore the nervous system to ‘rest’ mode after spending too much time in ‘fight, flight, or freeze’. Scheduling a massage, yoga class, meditation time or Reiki session are all ways that I help my body, mind, and spirit come back into alignment.
Even if I do all these things in a day, or even over the course of a week, I have no expectations of my body and mind to fully return back to equilibrium. It will take the time it takes and I know that I have to give myself the time I need to repair. I keep reminding myself in times like these that patterns of consistency over time is more important than checking all the boxes, and that’s the point, isn’t it? I want to find more ways to add these kinds of restorative time to my day-to-day life despite how busy things go, but I’m proud of myself for each step I take in that direction.
Please note that as a Registered Massage Therapist, I am not a Medical Doctor. The information above is for educational and entertainment purposes not to give medical advise. Any questions about your body or medical conditions should be addressed with a physician. Never delay or disregard personal professional medical advise based on information you have read on this website.
