How to Look After Yourself Better

Working with women I see just how many of us are struggling with a constant sense of feeling tired and burnt out.

The pressures of every day life and balancing so many different priorities can leave us feeling completely drained.

On top of that we're filled with guilt about living our best lives, exercising, reading more and being better people.

It leads most of us to ask the question, how? How on earth do any of us add in even more to what is already a very full and very heavy plate load of responsibilities we're already dealing with?

For me the only way to make this something realistic for my clients to achieve, is to make it as simple as possible to implement. That means going back to the basics of what works and what helps fill up our cup.

In this blog post I am going to share some of the simplest ways you can start to take better care of you.

WALK EVERYWHERE YOU CAN

There are lots of inevitable chores and routines in life we simply cannot avoid, however, if we can tie a positive behavior into an every day routine, we can make things much easier to implement.

Whether that is the school run, popping to the shops, going to work, which of these could you realistically tie in with getting some time outside doing some gentle movement like walking in the fresh air.

For me the daily dog walk allows me some quiet time at the start of my day to process my thoughts, check in with myself and for the most part gives me a better start to the day than if I rolled out of bed and went straight to my desk.

SET YOUR ALARM

I know lie in's are possibly the best thing since sliced bread. Sadly the evidence shows that our body clocks and sleep cycles really thrive off consistency. Having a regular bed time and wake up time helps encourage good sleep routines and patterns.

Approach this with a pinch of common sense, this has to work with what you've got going on and may only be something you can look to use during the working week.

If you're wanting to implement an earlier bed time but you're struggling to switch off, try and come off all electronic devices at least an hour before you're planning to go to bed. Switch to reading a book, meditating or journaling to help you wind down in a more peaceful way.

THROW AWAY THE SCALES

Have you ever been in a place where you're exercising regularly, eating pretty good and then the temptation to step on the scales kicks in and that number staring back at you wasn't what you wanted. Instantly you think what's the point? You feel really deflated even though leading up to that moment, everything felt like it was going well.

One of the most freeing feelings in the world is having no idea how much you weigh. I haven't a clue.

I know my clothes fit, I know roughly what size I am and I know that sometimes things feel tighter and other times they feel looser. I can safely say, not knowing how much I weigh has had zero impact in my ability to live my life.

Your gravitational pull towards the earth, is not a reflection of your value as a human being.

FIND A WAY TO EXERCISE THAT YOU ENJOY

It can be easy to always think of exercise as something you know you should do but in reality you just can't bring yourself to.

For most of us that comes down to never having tried different ways to enjoy exercise.

We're lucky that now there are lots of different classes and forms of exercise available to us that are miles apart from your classic gym session or sports based fitness.

There is no one right way to exercise, I tell my clients that the most important thing is they find something they can enjoy and something that fits into their lifestyle. It doesn't matter if your version of exercise looks different to everyone else. Trying to sign yourself up for a boot camp or boxercise class that you hate, means you'll stop going, eventually you'll cancel and then you'll end up back at square one.

All movement has merit and the longer you stick at something for, the better results and improvements to your health and fitness you will see.

Fancy trying a new style of workout? Why not head to my Watchlist and try one of my FREE YouTube workouts.