Three Practices Saving My Sanity
There is A LOT right now. I don't know a single person who isn't feeling it on a deep level.
I'm no different. I wanted to share three things that are keeping me sane and helping me get off the roller coaster of chaos.
There's also new info at the bottom of this blog about bringing sanity during uncertainty to your organization, so check that out, too!
Here are my three tiny practices:
🌟 Reading whatever I want
I just finished reading The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. It's a decidedly literary, intellectual book that required several google searches to define words I'd never heard of.
Next up? Funny Story by Emily Henry - a fun, probably highly predictable, romance novel.
They both sounded perfect to me when I picked them up.
Who cares if your reading selection is "productive"?! Just enjoy what you're going to enjoy. Personally, reading relaxes me in a way that no screen ever can.
🌟 Nature
If you've been around me for any amount of time, you know that I'm all about nature and hiking!
It's always given me joy and connection, but now it feels like a downright necessity, like I HAVE to get myself out into nature and feel a blanket of sun and wind and trees and dirt wrapped around me.
But it's not just a big hike on the trail...I've noticed that my whole body calms down when I go for a walk around the block after dinner or work on my patio on a warm afternoon or even hear a bird sing when I'm sitting inside the house with the windows open. It's pretty amazing.
🌟 Breathwork
I started doing 5-10 minutes of breathwork (almost) every morning over a year ago and it has been LIFE CHANGING.
Breathwork has reset my entire system to a calmer level. I'm more prepared to deal with any uncertainty that comes my way.
Simply taking a few very deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth will help, but going deeper has really been the magic for me. I do this 5-minute breathwork video most mornings, if you want to give it a try (read the details - people with certain conditions shouldn't do breathwork like this).
The second two practices on this list are scientifically proven to calm down our nervous systems...the first one, probably not
But this is what works for me, which is what matters.
This isn't about ignoring hard things - instead, it's about staying grounded within the hard things.
Right now, we all need a toolkit of things to keep us grounded. And that toolkit will look a little different for everyone.
👉 Here are some other scientifically proven ways to calm your nervous system and get grounded - nature and breathing are on the list, along with laughter, crying, creativity and making stuff, exercise, yoga, singing and humming, and paying attention to your senses, among other things.
But the key is to know what works for YOU. What's in your toolkit right now?
🔥 ALSO - I have an updated presentation on this topic designed to meet the exact moment we are in. It's called Surviving to Thriving: Real-world tools to heal burnout, increase resiliency, and regain calm during uncertainty. Read the full description here and send me a message if you want to learn more about bringing this topic to your organization!