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How much stress can you take?

Last updated on: Published by: Recognizing Potential Coaching 0

Do you hit snooze every morning? Is coffee a MUST in order to thrive each day? Are you irritable, snappy with your spouse/kids? You might be burnt out. 

Ever heard of microstressors? A microstressor is something that happens in your day that gives you a small jolt of cortisol. It stresses your body but comes across cognitively as an annoyance, irritation or inconvenience. Examples would be: your alarm clock going off when you’re in the middle of a REM cycle, your spouse asking you to do something for them when you’re already running late, a child telling you at 7 PM they have a science experiment due that night or they need a certain shirt, brownies or something else for the next day, a car pulling out in front of you on the way to work, spilling your coffee, etc. Anything that makes you have to pivot or utter curse words under your breath. 

Your body is only equipped to handle 40 microstressors per day. 40. If you hit snooze each morning, that’s another microstressor for each time your alarm goes off. That being said, think of how many times you experience a microstressor each day. Is it more than 40? Anything more than 40 causes your body to release extra cortisol (public enemy number 1) into your system causing belly fat, exhaustion in emotional, physical and mental form, and a taxation on your adrenal glands. Tired, cranky and out of energy and patience all the time? Now you know why. All of these extra microstressors lead to burn out and chronic stress. Chronic stress then leads to chronic health problems. 

So how do you overcome them? 

1. Get 7-9 hours of sleep. The recommended amount is 6-8 but 7-9 are needed to thrive, not just function. Turn off electronics at least 1 hour before bed. Get a diffuser or sound machine. STOP hitting SNOOZE!
2. Meet your other physiological needs- food, air, water, homeostasis. If those needs aren’t filled, you can’t concentrate on anything. Kids are the same way by the way. My 10 year old didn’t go to sleep until late last night and this morning, I think I heard at least 10 times in 2 hours how tired he was while he was trying to concentrate on school work. Kids need between 11-13 hours of sleep every night to thrive too. Ever tried to have a serious conversation when you’re hungry? Doesn’t work so well, does it? 
3. Eat healthy, enough and often. When your brain is depleted from nutrients, you can’t concentrate and everything is more intense. 
4. Exercise but if you’re exhausted, don’t try to do a HIIT or something strenuous. Do yoga or go for a nature walk. 
5. Socialize with friends. 2 hours a week with friends can increase happiness by 40%! Encourage your spouse to go on that guys/girls weekend! They’ll come back refreshed and be a better spouse/parent. 
6. Progress over perfection. There’s a difference in being a perfectionist and just living in fear and “perfect” doesn’t actually exist anyway! 
7. Deep breaths. Search cosmic yoga for a fun resource for your kids to calm down. For you, 5 deep breaths every 3 hours, indulging in a hobby, journaling, meditation. All of these are fantastic! 
8. Time management. Prioritize, let go of the small stuff (does it really matter if your spouse didn’t fold the towels right? They fit in the cupboard, they’re folded and you didn’t have to do it. Let it go), delegate, partner up, share the resources you have, stop trying to reinvent the wheel…see number 6 on the perfectionist thing. 
9. When you or your child are having a meltdown, ask “what need isn’t being met here”? What do you need?
10. Set expectations clearly, early and often. Talk to your kids about your expectations for the day during breakfast. Talk to your spouse about your expectations for budgeting at the beginning of the month, for the job you’re requesting they do before they start it, etc. 

If you need more information on microstressors or expectations, I’ve done a video on both in the facebook group. Feel free to join and check them out! I do free coaching in that group 2-3x a week every week! 
Otherwise, I hope this has helped and I wish you a weekend filled with less stress! 

XOXO,

Kameran

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Hit Reset

Last updated on: Published by: Recognizing Potential Coaching 0

“How in the name of Christmas does my house look like a hurricane hit when I just cleaned yesterday?”

It’s said that the way you keep your car or your house is a direct reflection of your life. Is your house chaos? Coordinated chaos? Neat and tidy? Boring and dull? Bright and happy? 

I’ve mentioned several times before but if you’re new here, my husband is a commercial airline pilot. Sometimes, like this month, he is gone for 4 days, home for 16 hours-5 days and gone again. The “joke” that’s not very ha ha funny is that he blows in, blows up and blows out. Well one day, not too long ago, I was not so secretly tired of walking behind him and our 10 year old picking socks up off the floor, grabbing the sweatshirt off the back of the chair, cleaning up 33 pairs of shoes by the door, etc. etc. I was also reading a book that I talked about a couple weeks ago called Atomic Habits by James Clear.

In the book, he talks about a bachelor that got tired of his apartment always being messy and refers to himself as “lazy”. But the one thing that got this bachelor on track was starting a “ROOM RESET”. When he was finished with the blanket, he’d shut the TV off, refold the blanket and put it back on the couch where it goes. He would literally reset the room before leaving it. 

This seemed completely brilliant! I started implementing this in my home immediately. When my husband started having to pick up all of his own things, I began to have more help, more time for what I wanted to do and less to pick up and he started understanding how much work it really takes to keep a home in order without losing your mind. We also implemented two other rules at the same time. A game called “one touch” and a rule called All+ 1. “One touch” means that whatever you touch, you touch once and put it where it goes right away. No more picking up a cup to move it to the counter then later move it to the dishwasher. Nope. Pick up the cup, in the dishwasher it goes. Dishes are in the dishwasher? You just got the responsibility of putting the dishes away, even if you’re 10. I’ll also add that my child doesn’t get an allowance. He helps out because we are a team and he is a part of that team. Everyone pulls their weight. I don’t get paid to cook dinner, he doesn’t get paid vaccum. Team effort. I will give him a little extra for detailing the car, or dusting base boards. All +1 means that when we do the room reset, you pick up all your junk plus one thing that isn’t yours. That way everyone is helping out. It gets done faster and the house stays picked up. 

So how does this apply to your life? Well for starters, it’s not too late to do a “reset” on your life. Stop dwelling on the past and move forward from where you are now. Reset where you are and start moving toward where you want to go. Reset your habits to start new ones or change old ones. Reset your relationship to be better. Get help, change behaviors, fix what’s broken, do a reset. Then check in every day. What’s it look like? How’d the reset go that day? What needs to happen to make it even better the next day? 

People never get to the end of something and know exactly what went wrong. They look back and think “what happened”? Small, repeated habits and patterns happened. They never got reset and now the breaking point has come. That breaking point may be your sanity, a divorce, a sippy cup of milk that has molded after getting lost under the seat, an extra 50 pounds, a health issue, whatever applies to you. 

If you don’t like who you are, what you’ve become, what your house, your car, or your life look like just yell out “RESET” and commit to it. 

XOXO,

Kameran