I hate this time of year. Hate is a strong word, but it fits here. Over half of my social media is filled with political posts.
“If you support this candidate, I never want to see you again, and we cannot be friends”
“This candidate is an idiot, liar, and needs to be in jail”
Here’s the thing: no one ever changes their mind based off of a facebook status or post, and if anyone wants to lump support for candidate X into a basket of unspeakable, excommunication, zero chance friendship – then fine…but I do have pity on you.
Ok, that’s enough of that…so,
What is the bigger picture here? Stress.
People tend to stress and spew onto social media and into social discussions (you know, like when people actually talk to each other) over certain things that they have no control over (don’t lecture me on voting here – I’m not saying that).
How does this affect our lives?
We lose sleep, we get sick, we stress eat, we get unhealthy – and damn John Snow, winter IS coming…
NO this is not just politics stressing us out, but other things, insert here _____, that in the big picture of things, what can we really accomplish by stressing out over them?
So how do we handle this stress in our lives that is making us sick, tired and fat?
As Elsa says, Let It Go…
But really, here are some tips (that even I need to continue to work on 😉
1) Stay away from things that get you fired up before bedtime. Whatever you are getting upset about, don’t let this approach bedtime. It will only get your brain firing, rage pumping, and adrenaline flowing. This is not a good recipe for sleep.
It is great to be passionate about anything; but please avoid it late at night, when you are trying to prepare for sleep. This might be to set a timer, to remind you to put your phone, computer, and tv away or off 30-60 minutes before your intended sleep time. Yes, treat yourself like your parents treated you as a child. Disconnect from everything that gets you all fired up. This is bedtime, this is your recovery time, this is essential.
2) Remind yourself that food won’t solve your stress. Food won’t fix it – still one of my favorite lines from my internship. We need to dissolve this morality with food that we and your family have created since we were young. Food caries no feeling, it is nourishment and tasty – but does not solve our problems.
If you find yourself reaching for food X – stop, ask yourself, what is it you REALLY want?
Something on TV pissing you off? How is eating cheetos going to fix that. Really. Think about it, laugh at yourself for how silly that sounds, and have some water.
Once you start recognizing emotional/stress eating – you should be able to laugh at yourself, and defuse the stress – and then hopefully find something else to do besides eating.
3) Chillax
Chill and relax. Read a good book, take an epson salt bath, get a massage, enjoy a good workout, spend time with your loved one…
There are so many things that we can do to de-stress – it is crazy how many people “don’t have time” for them. Yet those same people could catch you up on the latest Kardashian drama, quote the latest polling numbers in the election race, and tell you exactly what their favorite or least favorite people tweeted about.
Schedule some you time, some free time, some relaxing time. You wont regret it.
Be good to one another
Update: my computers hard drive completely crashed as I finished up this post… talk about ironic…deep breaths…
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Stay healthy my friends,