Can I Practice What I Preach?

This weeks blog post is a bit different - it's a personal reflection on practising what I preach, namely self care and taking time for yourself!

This week has been hectic. A combination of factors have meant that both at home and at work, life has been fast-paced and tricky to manage. I've been juggling an increased case load, helping trainees with research, mentoring NHS staff, attending meetings to set up a community garden in my area, and trying desperately not to ignore my friends who keep asking to meet up. Inspired by my own advice, I'm using the opportunity within this blog to talk about my own triggers for stress, and how I can tell I'm starting to struggle. Because it's my blog, and I make the rules(!)

Things that tend to stress me out:

• Generally feeling like I don't have time to do the tasks I've set myself. This can only be a mild feeling, but it gnaws away at me a lot of the time and can be draining if I let it be.
• Feeling like I've forgotten something. When I'm super busy, worrying about whether I've double booked myself or finished the letter I was writing can really get to me.
• Other people being disorganised/inconsistent or generally not as conscientious as I am about things. I don't mind a bit of disorganisation, I'm not perfect, but when it's every single day and other people start to notice, I can't manage it well.

How I know if I'm getting more stressed:

• I start to make mistakes. This week, for example, I've double booked myself twice. This is a small thing and was easily fixable, but it's something that I just don't do as a rule. I know I need to slow down.
• My tolerance for other people being slow/disorganised is much lower. And I mean MUCH lower. I find myself biting my tongue more, or removing myself from situations where I might say something I regret.
• I sleep more poorly. In spite of getting to bed at the usual time, I wake up at 1am and stay awake for an hour or so, worrying.
• I eat lunch at my desk. I'll pretend to be browsing the news, but really I'm writing notes - and the fact that I'm aware enough to pretend not to be proves that I know it's wrong!
• I start to consider staying late at work to finish things off.
• I don't eat properly - the hastily downed yoghurt and banana I had for my lunch today is not a proper meal. It might be healthy, but it's not enough.
  
  

How I tend to manage those things:

• By reminding myself that there are only a finite number of hours in the day, and enforcing breaks. This might be forcing myself to eat in the staff room at lunchtime (as I write this I'm wondering if I can rope one of my colleagues into my self care by reminding me to do this!) or by making sure I leave work on time. I'm pretty good at going home on time, but sometimes I come in at 7.30 rather than 8am and that needs to stop.
• By writing myself a list. I'm a big fan of the post-it function on my desktop, and I like that I can cross them all off one at a time. It clearly hasn't worked for me this week in terms of double booking, so I need to think about what to do about that!
• By using relaxation/meditation techniques. They work well for me, and only take five minutes, so I'm likely to always do them  now that they're part of my life (sometimes several times throughout the day!)

What I could do more of:

• Revisit sleep hygiene - I should know to get up rather than sitting and worrying, but I put it off instead! Ultimately I sleep pretty well, but this is one thing I know I could do differently.
• Eat better - this one is entirely on me. I failed to prepare well this week, therefore I should have prepared to fail!
• Go running - I've been skipping my regular exercise sessions because "I'm too tired," which I know from experience is a bad thing to do. I always feel better after I've done it, and it gives me energy. That's something I'm going to change this weekend.

Ultimately, I think I'm pretty good at managing stress, but I'm aware of things being tricky this week and this exercise has been helpful to remind me of the stuff that matters, that keeps me on an even keel. Try it yourself under the headings below, you might surprise yourself!

So what do you think? I'm not perfect, as I've said before - is there more I should be doing to manage my stress levels?! Let me know in the comments.