Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

Have you ever hit the proverbial “wall” and just wished you could hit a reset button to start things over in life? Maybe you’ve had a run of bad luck, unfortunate events, and challenges with health, work, or a relationship.

Regardless of the circumstances, I’d like to encourage you with a few thoughts and some tips that you can implement in order to do healthy reset to get things moving in the right direction.

How You Know It’s Time for a Change

Usually when we’ve hit a point where we know it’s time to make a change in life, there are some physical signs of stress that accompany the mental anguish of feeling “sick and tired.”

Some of these signs include:

• Trouble staying focused on tasks
• Difficulty falling asleep
• Repeatedly waking up throughout the night
• Digestive trouble
• Lack of energy
• Lower than normal sex drive and/or anorgasmia
• Recurring headaches
• Compulsive eating
• Heart palpitations
• Feeling “on edge”
• Snapping at loved ones for no particular reason

These symptoms all suggest that stress is taking its toll on you. Some of these symptoms are based upon my study of stress on the human body, and others are based upon the struggles I’ve seen some of my clients go through.

Please note that the list is not a comprehensive one. You may be experiencing other physical symptoms that are a result of stress.

How to Start Resetting Your Mind and Body

Great news: Making a change to our mind and body can be done quickly and easily.

I would not be responsible if I didn’t suggest the following… The first thing I recommend doing is getting a physical examination from your primary care physician. Your doctor should request some blood work to make sure that there is no health reason causing your physical symptoms.

Next, once any physical issues have been ruled out, we can dive into the psychological aspects of “hitting reset.”

If you don’t already have one, I want you to get a notebook or journal to keep track of a few things.

• Jot today’s date
• What time did you waking up?
• When are you going to bed?
• What did you eat today? Log all meals, snacks, and drinks.
• How much water did you consume today?
• Did you exercise? What did you do?
• On a scale from 1-10, how happy are you today? (1 is terrible, “I want to go back to bed and wake up tomorrow,” 10 is the best day of your life)
• Notes on the day

Sample:

• July 28, 2016
• Woke up at 6:00am
• Bedtime at 10:45pm
• Breakfast – scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, black coffee
• Snack – Apple with almond butter
• Lunch – Chicken salad, iced tea
• Snack – Handful of cashews
• Dinner – Fish tacos with a glass of red wine
• Drank 24oz of water
• Didn’t exercise today
• Today: 7
• Notes: Morning meeting at 8:30am went terribly, threw off the day. Recovered by having a fun time with the kids when I got home.

The reason I want you to jot down some notes like this is because I want you to start spotting trends.

This is the type of work I’ll do with a client when he or she is struggling with their performance. I want you to look at a few things that can help you begin improving your mood:

• Are you getting enough sleep?
• Are you consuming too much caffeine? Coffee has a lot of health benefits, but can also increase anxiety. Consider cutting back a little if you’re feeling heightened anxiety.
• Are you eating well? Don’t skip meals, don’t eat greasy fast food, and don’t eat too late. Eating late and drinking alcohol at night will disrupt your sleep.
• Are you well hydrated? You’d be surprised at how many CEOs forget to drink water throughout the day. When I conduct this exercise, we add water to their day and all of a sudden they feel way better… Go figure!
• Are you exercising? Start walking around your neighborhood. Do it for 15 minutes, then after a few days bump it up to 30 minutes. Exercise does amazing things for your brain.

Check the trend between your mood and how well you sleep, eat, drink water, and exercise. Begin making adjustments in each of these areas in order to start optimizing your performance.

Obviously, every person is different. The brain is a fascinating and complex organ. Please give yourself realistic expectations! Sometimes all you need to do is to change things around to hit the “reset” button.

I’m barely scratching the surface with these suggestions. If you’re curious about what you can do to improve your mental or physical performance, feel free to reach out to me.

I’d love to have a conversation with you to see how I can help. If you have any questions on anything I’ve pointed out, please leave a comment below!