Mindful Living Is the Antidote to Overwhelm

Change is hard, regardless of what area of your life you’re focusing on. When you’re used to doing things a certain way, and have ingrained and automated habits that guide you, it can be difficult to pull away from them.

The good news is that what you’ve been doing, you probably do without giving it much thought. So any bit of attention you give to an issue you want to resolve will allow you to make new decisions based on past experiences and results.

Mindfulness is a concept that might make you feel unnerved in the beginning. There are many things we do out of comfort automatically so that we don’t have to feel guilty or bad about our choices.

When you’re being mindful about something, it means you’re focused on it and applying common sense and thoughtful consideration to your options. You’re looking realistically at what results you’ll get if you make one decision over another... 

Micro Mindful Living Habits

When you want to make changes in your life, it can sometime feel daunting when you start thinking of everything that you want to overhaul. From your sleep schedule and nutrition regimen to your career pursuits and relationship efforts.

What usually happens on a day-to-day basis is we coast through life allowing things to occur until it reaches a breaking point, where you feel like you have to do something about it.

Then it feels like change has to happen right in that moment, which is an unrealistic expectation to make of yourself. Instead of embracing an unachievable goal, try to integrate micro mindful living habits that will put you on the path to success in whatever it is you’re trying to achieve without overwhelming you in the process. ....

Find Motivation to Meditate

Meditation is a healthy habit to adopt that can destress and relax your mind and body. It develops mindfulness skills, increases your self-confidence, and focus on achieving your goals and living a happier life. Below are a few more ways to find the motivation to meditate.

Understand Your Why

Why do you want to meditate in the first place? Highlight these reasons and fully understand them. Do you want to meditate for yourself or someone else? Will meditation provide you the value or happiness you are looking for? Whatever it may be, write it down and visualize it. Make it obvious and use it as a reminder.

List the Benefits to Meditation

Ask yourself, "What benefits does meditation provide me?" Make the benefits evident and personal. You can go a step beyond by developing a reward system to keep you accountable. Creating more benefits as you go along your meditation journey.

Outline Your Obstacles

What is keeping you from meditating? Be honest and take the time to answer this question truthfully. It's easy to create obstacles that are not there or make them up to prevent you from being successful. This often leads to the fear of success and is something you genuinely need to take the time to reflect and dissect to combat.

Learn to Schedule Your Time Better

Always schedule a time to meditate. There is plenty of time in the day, no matter how busy you think you are. It merely comes down to proper time management skills. Using a schedule and ensuring you block out enough time for every task you do, including meditation, provides the foundation to better use your time. You don't need a lot of time to get started, add five minutes to your morning or evening routine, or split the difference.

Find A Community

Studies show that being with more like-minded people helps you achieve your goals. The community keeps you on track and prevents you from being distracted. It is easy to stay motivated and focused if everyone around you is on the same path. Join Facebook groups, other online forums like Reddit or find local events and clubs to find your people and collaborate.

As you can see, finding motivation takes work and is personal. You can't expect it to come to you. You must find the motivation to meditate and then use it to your advantage.

Benefits from Volunteering

Volunteering is a vital service to your community. There are many organizations and people that struggle to get the items and things they need to live a healthy and robust life. It often takes the backbone, care, and empathy from volunteers to provide the help that your community needs.

While your community thrives on volunteers, it can provide you just as many if not more benefits to your life. The following are four benefits to you from volunteering:

Builds More Relationships

When you are part of a team, connections form, loneliness affects 3 out of 5 Americans according to Cigna's 2020 Loneliness Index. Loneliness leads to depression and anxiety that can wreak havoc on people's immune systems and the economy.

When you start volunteering, you’ll meet new people who share your values but are different from you. From those you help and those, you work with to volunteer. Creating new relationships and opening your life to more opportunities, knowledge, and understanding of the world.

Increases Knowledge and Understanding Of Others

As you volunteer, you get a clearer idea of how other people live differently or similarly to you. Opening your perspective and gaining a new understanding of the world. This increases your compassion and empathy. Knowledge allows you to live a more positive life and live with more intention.

Provides A Sense of Purpose

When you know your purposes in life, it’s easier to understand who you are and where you fit in best, within the community. This knowledge also helps to bring you a greater sense of happiness and success. Volunteering gives you a sense of direction and enables you to contribute to society in a meaningful way. As you continue to volunteer, you will gain a sense of pride. This develops your self-esteem, confidence, and strengthens your drive to continue volunteering.

Expands Career Skills and Opportunities

Volunteering often builds and enhances skills that employer’s value most. On your resume, add the teams you were on, the hours-worked, your job title, and your duties. This gives employers an idea of your skills, priorities, and preferences. It also helps them understand how much experience you have in specific areas and what important qualities you already possess.

Volunteering can also provide a new environment, where you can practice solving problems or help answer people’s common questions. Volunteering can be very beneficial, as you learn new things and help make life better for others.

5 Effective Ways To Deal With Pressures In Life

Do you ever feel like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? Or, at the very least the weight of the people around you? Nothing weighs you down like pressure and too much of it is likely to leave you feeling frustrated, angry, and sad. In extreme cases, you may find yourself bubbling over and knocked out by overwhelm and burnout.

It isn't just work deadlines that get you, it can also be financial obligations and the burden of daily life. Money, in particular, is a rising cause of anxiety and stress for Americans. Combined with the stress of excessive working hours, a lack of control and support, and it's no wonder so many people are feeling under pressure.

We all react differently to pressure, some people swear it makes them perform better while others recognize the damage it can do to their performance. It is much easier to remain focused on a task when you're calm. So, let's look t five effective ways to deal with pressures in life.

1. It's The Process, Not The Outcome
Sometimes, the best thing you can do for yourself is detach from the outcome and remain focused on the work that you are doing. It is much easier to live your potential if you remove the obstacles you face mentally. If you focus on the process, rather than the outcome, it will reduce the likelihood of performance anxiety.

2. Organize
How do you organize your day? How do you manage your thoughts? You can't store it all in your head. The best way to deal with thoughts and responsibilities is to have an external organization system. It might be that you write out a daily to-do list, it could be that you prefer a digital calendar. Whatever it is – it removes the pressure of memorizing everything you have to do and worrying about forgetting something. Your list is your bible and will serve as a reminder for everything you need to do or deal with. You will notice a serious dip in the pressure you carry.

3. Deal With Negative Thoughts
If you struggle with negative thoughts this will only add to the pressure you feel. One of the ways you can manage these thoughts is through re-framing them. When you are faced with a negative thought, start by putting things into perspective. As frantic worry starts to overtake you, stop and remind yourself that no matter what it is you're faced with that you can handle it. It's not the end of the world, work through it by deciding your next steps – first, I'm going to do x and then I'll do y, and do this until you have successfully reframed your thoughts and empowered yourself.

4. Know Your Limits
Your brain can only keep it all together for so long. So, if you're dealing with tens of thousands of thoughts daily (you are), as well as a list of things to do, and a glut of problems, your brain can only maintain for so long. Understand that your brain has limitations and start going easy on yourself. Be realistic. Do not expect to carry all of the solutions all of the time. You literally can't.

5. Breathe Through It
When you are faced with a crisis, too much pressure or you feel overwhelmed, press pause and breathe through it. Count to ten as you inhale deeply and exhale and allow yourself a moment to clear your brain of worries. Let your mind have enough time to recalibrate so you relieve some of that pressure and allow yourself to think more clearly to deal with the problem at hand.

Here is a very interesting article written by Jessica Stillman I found in Inc magazine which I suggest you read asap:

We're only a week into 2021 and we've already had a coup attempt, a rampaging new strain of Covid, a halting vaccine rollout, and even attack squirrels (murder hornets and meth alligators are so 2020). It does not appear we're in for a restful year. But even if the world makes it hard to relax, at least one doctor insists we all need to find a way to reset and recharge anyway.

And that's more complicated than just switching off your brain and switching on Netflix every once in a while.

In a new TED Ideas post, Saundra Dalton-Smith insists "we go through life thinking we've rested because we have gotten enough sleep -- but in reality we are missing out on the other types of rest we desperately need" and outlines the seven types of rest that are essential for human flourishing

1. Physical rest

This is the usual definition of rest we're all familiar with. But while we know we need to spend a decent number of hours in bed to stay healthy, a steady drumbeat of studies shows a large proportion of us still don't get enough physical rest.

2. Mental rest
Always have a tornado of thoughts swirling in your head from the moment you wake up to the moment you (finally) fall asleep? You need more mental rest, and even if you sleep a solid eight hours a night, you're not going to feel fully recharged until you get it.

"The good news is you don't have to quit your job or go on vacation to fix this. Schedule short breaks to occur every two hours throughout your workday; these breaks can remind you to slow down. You might also keep a notepad by the bed to jot down any nagging thoughts that would keep you awake," suggests Dalton-Smith.

3. Sensory rest
Staring at screens all day and all night means your eyes never get a proper rest, but this isn't the only reason many of us never give our senses a break. Noisy cities, pinging notifications, and blaring music all contribute to constant sensory stimulation. Your brain needs a rest now and again. Consciously close your eyes and give yourself the gift of silence for short periods throughout the day...

Read on here  

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How Thoughts and Thinking Control Your Emotions

Your emotions are controlled in two ways: thoughts and actions. Any thought or action you take will create an emotional response. If you can’t adjust your thinking or thoughts and actions together, it is unlikely that you will be able to control your emotions. Thankfully, it is possible to control your thoughts. This means that you can also manage your emotions.

Positive thoughts and thinking lead to positive results. This is a common philosophy many people strive to live by, and you should too. The more you think positively throughout your day, the more your emotions will stay positive. Likewise, any action you take will also lead to thoughts. The more positive energy you put out into the world, the more positive energy you will receive.

This is mainly due to how powerful emotions can feel especially negative ones. Negative emotions and energy are hard to shake off and are contagious to others. If you have a negative emotion before you do something, chances are it won’t be done well because you are not at your best.

Have you ever noticed how, when you start your day off badly, it feels like the rest of your day keeps going wrong?

This is likely because you never got over the bad mood and keep thinking and acting negatively. If you make a mistake or notice you are in a lousy mood, brush it off quickly, do something to help, you focus your thoughts differently. If you can, laugh, and then move on. Chances are, you will make fewer errors and you will also be happier throughout your day.

Your thoughts can lead to three different responses to your emotions:

• Negative – If you have a negative thought, it is likely your action will be adverse, and your emotions will match the negativity of those actions.
• Positive – Positive thoughts can lead to more positive actions and emotions. In a more positive state, your brain is active, and you are likely to try your best, leading to fewer mistakes and better decision making.
• Neutral – A neutral or indifferent response can lead to both a neutral or negative response because being indifferent means you are not wholly responsive, which can lead to poor judgments or lackluster work. However, sometimes a neutral reaction is better than a negative one.

As you can see, what is going on in your mind can produce unwanted emotions that can negatively affect your life. The emotions can affect how you act, which then impacts your life in an even more negative way. This is why many strive to think more positive thoughts because it is one thing they can control on this wild ride of life. 

10 Ways to Reduce Everyday Stress

Stress is responsible for many problems in people's lives. Stress causes worsened health problems, poor-quality work, and unsatisfying relationships. Managing and reducing stress is essential to everyday life if you want to be happy and fulfilled.

Identify Stress Starters

Take the time to see if there are obvious things that are causing stress and figure out how to solve it. If it is work-related, can these tasks be delegated to others, or can you find a better position? Or maybe as you identify stressors, you realize that your stress is increased after you had your coffee for the day.

Eat A Well-Rounded Diet

The old saying, ‘you are what you eat’ will always be true. Most of the time, if you don’t feel good, it can be traced to a poor diet. Unnatural food and unnatural or overly processed food and sugar are known to make stress worse.

Exercise Daily

Exercise reduces stress because anytime you exercise, you activate hormones that make you feel good. Conversely, the hormone cortisol is responsible for stress and is significantly reduced during exercise, so you both reduce hormones that make you feel stressed and boost hormones that make you feel good through exercise.

Get Enough Sleep

Sleeping poorly means an increase in cortisol in your blood, which leads to stress. Most adults need at least seven hours of sleep each night to function optimally. Likewise, don’t oversleep. Adults typically don’t need more than 9 hours a night of sleep.

Drink Enough Water

Dehydration can also increase cortisol levels, so make sure you get enough water per your weight. The standard message of drinking eight glasses of water a day applies but double-check with your healthcare professional to find out how much you need based on your weight, health, diet, and other factors unique to you.

Get A Blood Test

Stress can easily be caused due to underlying medical conditions or your vitamin levels being off. Get a comprehensive blood test to see where you may be having issues. Low vitamin D, B12, and iron are responsible for symptoms of stress.

Laugh Often

Get those feel-good chemicals activated by laughing. Laughing reduces muscle tension, increases oxygen intake, and reduces your heart rate and blood pressure— all reducing your stress.

Meditate Daily

Meditation uses mindfulness techniques to achieve a mental and emotionally stable state of being. This is why it is such a great technique to reduce stress, as this is the primary goal. Even five minutes daily after you wake up can make a big difference.

Practice Breathwork

Breathwork encompasses easy breathing exercises that can be done right away when stress feels overwhelming. It is as simple as holding your breath for a few minutes or following a phone application that has you tailor your breathing to the imagine. These exercises work by having your focus on other things while also bringing in a sense of relaxation due to increasing blood oxygen levels from regulated breathing patterns.

Listen to Music and Get Moving

Music and moving around are great medicine for many problems, not just stress. Moving and music can make people feel happy and energized. The more you produce feel-good hormones, the more your cortisol levels will decrease too. So, turn up that music and cut a rug.

When in doubt, don’t be afraid to seek the advice of a health professional if your stress is taking over your life. However, these ten ways to reduce everyday stress are a great way to start.