Stress and anxiety are on the rise, and it's no surprise that in an overstimulated, media-addicted, immediate gratification-demanding world, our brains are on overload and the demands on our time are relentless.
For many of us, all that overthinking and mental chatter is wreaking havoc on our nervous systems.
I believe that the secret to developing a greater sense of calm in your life is to manage your body and mind with good daily habits.
So this is part two of a four-part series where I talk about my go-to daily habits that help me manage my stress, my health, and my overthinking brain.
Let's get started.
Hey there, you are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy.
This is a podcast for overthinkers, overachievers, perfectionists, type-A, stressed-out anxious people who just want to calm down and feel better.
I'm your host, certified life coach Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there and welcome back.
This is part two of my home series.
The four essential go-to habits that I recommend for all my overthinkers to lower your stress and mitigate your anxiety.
If you listened to my last episode, you know that this is all part of my basic self-care series.
These are my fundamentals, what I refer to as my non-negotiables.
Home, H-O-M-E, is the acronym that I use to teach my clients and I use for myself for a daily checklist.
In the last episode, we talked about our bodies being like a high-performance automobile or a luxury sports car.
It doesn't need just good care on the outside.
It also requires good care on the inside.
So last week we spoke about H being hydration, water, eight glasses, eight ounces each minimum.
But the other piece is the O, which is observe your levels.
And what I mean by that is two things.
It's what you eat and it's how much you sleep.
So it sounds pretty basic, but you'd be surprised how little discipline there is around these two categories.
Very often, you will hear people do the label game.
And what I mean by this is people will just spew out, "I'm sad, I'm depressed, I feel anxious, I think I'm going crazy, I'm losing it."
Now, I'm not suggesting that if something is chronic and debilitating, you should absolutely go see a professional, a doctor, a therapist.
This is not what we're talking about.
I'm talking about when it acutely comes over you, like maybe the same time every day, like that mid-afternoon slump, or when you wake up in the morning and you feel like it's hard to get out of bed, or you're having trouble sleeping at night.
I'm talking about acute times of the day where you're seeing patterns.
I'm not talking about a chronic medical condition.
But before you start to throw out these labels, like "I'm anxious, I'm depressed, I'm sad, what have you," take a moment and look at your homework.
Check in with your home.
Are you hydrated as we talked about?
And then what have you eaten and how much sleep have you gotten?
So let's separate these out for a moment.
Let's first talk about food.
Actually, one of my favorite subjects.
I love food.
I love cooking.
I love recipes.
I love sharing food.
I love the communal gathering of food.
I have made a lifetime of studying around food and nutrition and what works best for my body.
But food for a lot of people is an addiction and not a conscious one even.
It's like a warm, comfy blanket for a lot of people.
If they're having a celebration, they want food.
If they're having a bad day, they want food.
People, when they're bored, grab things.
When people are tired, they tend to want sugar.
When people had a rough day, they reach for alcohol.
When people are fatigued, they grab coffee or caffeine.
And look, some of this is necessary, right?
If our blood sugar is low, we need to get food in our body.
But when we create an awareness around food, when we respect food and it's mindfully created and consumed, it ends up being that high-performance fuel we need for that high-performance vehicle also known as our body.
So the first step is being mindful about food and not just absentmindedly eating or waiting till the point of starvation.
I'm a huge proponent of eating regularly.
Now, regularly means different things to different people.
For some people, regularly means three square meals a day.
Other people need a snack.
Other people are intermittent fasting and so they're a two-meal-a-day person.
Whatever works for your body is fine.
But I believe that all meals should have a protein component, a lean, healthy, non-processed protein component.
Now, whether that's beef, lamb, turkey, chicken, fish, seafood, eggs, nuts, beans, whatever works for you is fine, but it starts with the protein. That's the true fuel.
When we overconsume flours and sugars, or almost all the carbohydrates, our blood sugar tends to spike.
We tend to crave more foods.
That's why when we eat crackers or potato chips or cookies, we just want more and more and more.
But by eating lean protein at every meal, we give the body what it really needs.
And then we supplement that with healthy vegetables, small amounts of fresh fruit, and then we add the carbohydrates in.
But our culture and society tends to be carbohydrates first, right?
Snack foods are readily available.
High sugar, high sodium, things with lots of flour tend to be what's cheapest and most available.
And that's what we end up craving instead of the other way around.
But when we change our relationship with food, when we really recognize it as powerful fuel, not something we should be afraid of and not something we should be addicted to or weaponize against ourselves as like what I was talking about earlier with self-sabotage where, "Oh, I feel badly, so I'm going to have this bag of Oreos or I'm going to have this pint of ice cream," nor should you be eating it and then having the guilt reaction, right?
So it's changing your mindset towards it and truly looking at it as an opportunity to fuel your body properly so that you don't get the spikes in blood sugar and you don't end up with that afternoon feeling of exhaustion or anxiety or sadness.
So changing your relationship with food, planning your meals whether again it's two times, three times, four times a day, but making them protein-centric.
Now does that mean sitting down to a massive steak?
No, it could be enough to get you to the next place, to the next station.
But sometimes our body, just like when it's dehydrated, mimics sadness or anxiety.
And then, of course, that leads to things like overthinking because we're simply hungry.
So observe your levels means, what did you eat today?
And when was the last time you ate?
Check in with your body and give it the fuel it needs, but plan for it.
Just like we wouldn't drive our automobile on a long road trip and wait till we ran out of gas to realize that it wasn't working or not change the oil regularly or check the levels of the oil or brake fluids, all of it, right?
We need to monitor what's going on in our bodies.
So the next key component to observe your levels is sleep.
They go in concert with one another.
Oftentimes, food affects your sleep, and sleep affects your food.
And what I mean by this is if you're not getting a good night's rest, you're going to be tired and then you're going to tend to crave things like caffeine and sugar and immediate gratification type foods.
And those are not only addictive, but then they are also going to interrupt your sleep.
So it's kind of a vicious cycle.
The reason why sleep and food go together in this category is because they literally go together in terms of working as a highly functioning loop, and they can also work against each other.
So sleep hygiene is essential.
And what does sleep hygiene mean?
Sleep hygiene means having a bedtime ritual.
What are you doing before you go to bed?
Are you working till the moment you go to bed?
Are you scrolling social media?
Are you getting stimulated or triggered?
Just using all of that artificial light can tend to disrupt your natural circadian rhythms.
So we want to eliminate screen time before bed.
Now, a lot of people really enjoy television before they go to sleep.
They find that very relaxing.
If that works for you, then fine.
But if you're having trouble falling asleep, I highly recommend eliminating screens, computers, tablets, smartphones, television, all of it.
And then you want to make sure your room is dark.
That's a huge part of sleep hygiene.
If you have curtains or blinds, close them.
If you don't, use a sleep mask.
But you want to try and create as much darkness as possible.
That also means covering the LED lights in your rooms.
The alarm clocks.
The smartphones, the DVRs, the VCRs, the televisions, whatever is lit up, cover it up.
That will also help you stay asleep and fall asleep.
Is your room cool enough?
Can you use a fan or air conditioning?
Is it safe for you to open a window?
What can you do to keep the room or get the room as cool as possible?
And then it's also about calming your mind and body down before you go to sleep.
Whether that's a hot shower or a hot bath or a good book or writing in your journal or playing some soft music, treat yourself like a baby.
You wouldn't have your children run around right before bedtime.
You would read them a book, give them a bath, rock them in a chair, or lay down next to them.
You would tell them a story and get them to calm down and feel safe.
So if you're struggling with insomnia, do the same for you.
What makes you feel calm?
What makes you feel safe?
The other piece of it is knowing that you have a ritual in terms of what time you're going to bed.
Now, we can't always be exact; circumstances come up.
But having a good idea about going to bed at the same time every night is really key.
And getting up at the same time every day.
Yes, if you want to sleep in on the weekends for a little extra rest, that's awesome.
But in general, knowing that you're going to get up about the same time every day, that also helps.
Sleeping too much can also create that feeling during the day of exhaustion, fatigue, depression, sadness, and anxiety.
All of these things work in concert together to reduce that label that we give ourselves that "I feel this, therefore I am."
So good sleep hygiene is an essential element to self-care.
Another question to ask yourself is, what are you doing before you go to bed?
What are you eating?
What are you drinking?
Are you taking in caffeine, coffee, tea, soda, even diet soda, kombucha in the afternoon or evening?
That little bit of extra caffeine may be preventing you from falling asleep at night or keeping you asleep if you have trouble and you're waking up in the middle of the night.
Sometimes a heavy meal before bed can create great disruption in sleep as well.
Or if you're eating sugars.
It's really fun to eat dessert and dark chocolate and all those good things.
But if you're eating them too close to bed or even at all, your system may not be able to tolerate it.
So just experiment with it.
Another one is alcohol.
While alcohol relaxes the body, at least at first, it requires a lot for your organs to be able to digest.
I'm not suggesting you never have a beer or never have a glass of wine.
That's great if you can do that.
But if you're having trouble sleeping, again, either falling asleep or staying asleep, alcohol may be the culprit.
This is what observe your levels is all about.
It's about food awareness, eating regularity, but also eating whole foods, protein at every meal, vegetables as the bulk of your meal, and then supplementing with whole foods, whole carbohydrates rather than flours and sugars.
And sleep—how much are you getting?
Do you need more?
Do you need less?
Rest is essential to the wellness and feeling of calm and relaxation.
Clear-headedness helps you do your job, have great focus, and not feel foggy-brained all day.
So there you have it.
Observe your levels.
It's all about good eating and good sleeping.
That's how we get the body to perform at its optimal level.
Next week, join me for the third part of this series, the M, and M is for meditation.
We're going to talk about all things meditation, all the benefits, and all the different ways you can learn to meditate.
I look forward to seeing you next week.
Stay healthy, stay hydrated, get a good night's rest, and eat well.
If you want to learn more tips about managing your stress and how to manage your overthinking brain, just go to my website and sign up for my weekly newsletter at jackiedecrinis.com.
That's J-A-C-K-I-E-D-E-C-R-I-N-I-S dot com.
You can also follow me on Instagram @jackiedecrinis.
Bye for now.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Overthinker's Guide to Joy.
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