Written by: Jeanne Agius, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Many people walk around, drive, go to work, and live their lives in a permanent state of fatigue and burnout. Sometimes people are tired for unexplained health reasons. Still, there are often very typical reasons for fatigue, including lack of regular sleep, lack of self-care, poor diet, and insufficient exercise.
In this article, we're going to look at different ways to combat and overcome burnout so that you can get your life back. Let's get back to the state of becoming an energetic, happy, recharged individual who can accomplish more than you ever thought you could. After all, prevention is the best medicine of all.
Track How You Spend Your Time
If you don't know how much you're doing, it can be easy to keep going 24/7 and never take a break. Take some time to track what you're doing daily for about a week. You can use your smartphone to track your activities or go old school and carry around a small notebook to record how you're spending your time.
Drop Activities That Don't Produce Real Results
When you look at the activities you did while tracking, note the things that aren't producing results, or that are busywork, or that are entirely unnecessary. For example, do you go to a lot of meetings? Do you have to? Do you spend a lot of time trying to help a relative, friend, or someone else without results? Let go of anything that you can either stop doing or outsource. Or, if you keep doing it, find a way to put limits on it.
Put Everything in Your Calendar
One reason people get overscheduled doing too much and become mentally exhausted is that they think they're magic. They believe they can do 48 hours of work in 24 hours. But, if you started putting everything on your calendar correctly, you would see that you just can't. First, schedule the must-dos. Then add family time, date night, friend time, and please don't forget "me" time to your day. Don't add anything to your schedule that will reduce these critical things.
Get a Good Night's Sleep
Don't forget how important sleep is. Most adults should seek to get between seven and nine hours a night. It largely depends on your genetics how much sleep feels right for you. Work with what you know you need. If you're having trouble sleeping at night, address that issue so that you fall asleep fast and your sleeping time is productive. To help get used to this process, go to bed and wake up at the same time every day for at least 30 days. You can start with the least time and work your way up to find out which amount of time works best for you to make you feel rested each day.
Exercise Every Day
Schedule exercise time each day. It doesn't have to be strenuous exercise, and it can be as simple as a brisk walk. You also don't need to schedule an entire hour. Look at your schedule so that you can determine if you have 10 minutes to walk six times a day or three 20-minute walks a day. You can also separate that into different types of exercise. The important thing is to get up out of a chair and move as much as you can.
Eat Right
I cannot stress enough that eating the correct type of food for your body is vital. There is bio-individuality and what you eat often depends on what you need. Ask your doctor to test your blood levels for vitamins and then eat what you need to avoid deficiencies. Try eating smaller meals throughout the day, which will give you a break, boost your energy, and help you stay more focused.
Stay Hydrated
It can be very easy to get dehydrated. Most adults should drink between eight and ten 8-ounce glasses of water each day to stay hydrated. If you exercise strenuously, you'll need more. Tea, coffee, soda, and sugary drinks (even fake sugar) are all dehydrating and don't do the same as clean, filtered water will. Take the challenge and commit to drinking enough water for 30 days, and you'll see a huge difference.
Take Regular Breaks
When you are doing mental tasks, it's hard to want to take a break sometimes because there are times when the time is just flying by as you work, and you don't notice. But, it would be best if you took regular breaks. Since the brain works in 90-minute cycles, one way to accomplish breaks is to set up five- to ten-minute breaks every 115 minutes. Set a timer if you must. Get up and stretch, go for a fast walk, grab a snack, drink some water, and you'll come back refreshed.
Rest Your Eyes
Many people using their brains all day tend to sit in front of a computer, and computer monitors are terrible for your eyes. You can install software such as f.lux to help lessen the strain, but getting away from the monitor on your regular breaks is going to help too.
Understand That It's Okay to Do Nothing
Many intelligent, busy people tend to be uncomfortable with downtime and feel like they're slackers. But, even if you have a mentally exhausting job compared to a physically exhausting one, everyone needs to get away sometime. Schedule your yearly vacations and do something. Even if you stay home and look at local sites, that's okay - everyone needs downtime, and everyone needs time to do nothing.
Suffering from mental exhaustion is not a fun experience, and it can sneak up on you when you think you're doing wonderfully well and then realize you're not. Focusing on these strategies will create a deeper impact and create lasting change.
Jeanne Agius, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jeanne Agius is a former Corporate Escapee turned founder of Self-Care Journey Coaching, every woman's Self-Care Coach, Healthy Lifestyle Expert, certified holistic wellness, life and success coach, NLP, EFT, hypnotherapy and Time Practitioner, International Speaker, along with a wife and mom of 2 rambunctious toddlers.
She has also been featured in publications such as Yahoo Finance as one of the Top 20 Female Entrepreneurs, Top 20 Female Entrepreneurs to look out for in Benzinga, Authority, Medium, and Brainz.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, she spent 15+ years in the Corporate world, leading various projects in Marketing, Communications, and Risk Management and the health and wellness space as young as 16 years old.
Since becoming a mom of two, she has been a frequent speaker worldwide on guiding women, especially moms, to prioritize themselves and their whole health without feeling guilty, despite the many hats they wear. She has been fortunate to help hundreds of women worldwide elevate their lifestyles and optimize their whole-body wellness by using self-care as their superpower to thrive. She is on a mission to help thousands more build strong bodies, confident minds, and healthy lifestyles they're obsessed with through her signature Self-Care System.
Her upcoming book will help redefine self-care for today's woman because she wholeheartedly believes tending to your basic needs is not self-care, but true self-care is essential to living a life you love.
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