Categories
Blog

Are you a workaholic? Tips to organize your way to less stress and more peace

Are you trying to ease your work stress while still being productive? I’m sharing some things I’m doing that have helped.

Non-stop work has been my only vice for my entire life. I often worked 7 days a week. I was proud of this until a few months ago. I had a major health scare and ended up in the Emergency Room. The doctor gave it to me straight – get rid of the stress and learn to relax, or I was likely to die sooner rather than later.

With that incentive, I looked at my life to figure out how and where to make effective changes. I worked to create a system that I could (and would) follow.

Here are the changes I have made:

Quitting time: I end my days at 3 pm or earlier every day. I have insomnia and start work when I get up for the day, sometimes as early as 2 am.

Take all breaks: I used to sit for hours without a break. Now, I use the Pomodoro Method and take breaks after 25 minutes.

Walk regularly: I diligently try to walk at least 5 minutes out of every 30 minutes. Basically, after each Pomodoro Break.

Sabbath Day: It’s not just for Christians. We all need a weekly day of rest.

Artist’s Date: This comes from author Julia Cameron, who advises taking an Artist’s Date each week. Rules are: be alone, for at least an hour, doing anything that sparks your curiosity.

Practice Heart-Centered Breathing: I do this at least 3x each day for at least 3 minutes.

Done List: I write down every task as I finish it on a sticky note on my computer.

Daily Wrap-up: At the end of every day, in a designated notebook, I note all my finished tasks for the day. I then write what went well, what could have gone better, and what I want to do next time, or the next day. This puts a nice successful period on the end of my day.

There are a few more things I do daily, but I find these are key. I’m still tweaking my system, but I’ve noticed a definite difference in my blood pressure and how I feel. You will too.

Categories
Blog

The Power of Heart-Centered Breathing

Want to calm down? Drop your attention out of your head and into your heart. Picture yourself breathing through your heart, and then begin to slow your breathing down even more. It only takes a minute to reset to coherence, which means all your systems line up and work in harmony.

Science has discovered that emotions such as frustration, irritation, impatience, anger, and worry disrupt our system, inhibit brain function, and impair our performance. Conversely, emotions such as appreciation, calmness, patience, and confidence promote optimal performance by creating coherence.

Why does heart-centered breathing work?

We’ve known for years that the heart and brain constantly communicate. More recently, scientists have discovered the heart sends 5-10 times the number of messages to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.

Heart rhythms directly affect the brain centers involved in foresight, decision-making, social awareness, and our ability to self-regulate. Our cortex (the front part of our brain) does the thinking. But, it can only do that when the thalamus tells it to do so, because the thalamus is the command center and synchronizes all the cortical activity.

When we focus on our heart, it changes what is happening with both the sympathetic (our gas pedal) and the parasympathetic (our brake) nervous systems. When we are incoherent, they work against each other. By bringing our attention to the heart, these systems synchronize and begin working together. This harmony changes and unlocks the brain in a beneficial way.

The next time you feel out of sorts (incoherent), center your attention on your heart and begin to breathe yourself into coherence. It works.