Taste Life Blog

“I have a career, spouse, kids and some days I want to give some of it back. I am tired of being so busy and being Superwoman.”

We tell ourselves that busy is good for us. It gives us something to do and we get a sense of accomplishment from checking off items on our to-do list. About 25 percent of people experience stress every day. Short-term stress, like exercise, is good as it jump-starts our metabolism. Chronic stress, when cortisol levels are increased, can be harmful. Cortisol also makes you crave fatty, sweet, and salty foods. You eat, relax a little and then get stressed again so you eat more to regain that same sense of calm. Pretty soon your clothes — including your Superman cape — don’t fit. Fall is a new beginning and time for you to throw away your Superman cape and stop doing it all!

5 tips to de-stress your fall

Simplify: Busy doesn’t always mean effective and productive. Ask a friend to tell you five things to immediately simply your life. Friends and family are always ready to help.

Be Really Selfish: We spend tremendous amounts of energy thinking about and worrying about everything we need to do. Life is too short to do what you should do. Start to do less of what you don’t want to do. First step, make a list of the top ten things you do during an average week that you don’t like. For one week, stop doing them and see what happens.

Use Planned Abandonment: Sometimes it is time to abandon even the “good things” in life and replace it with something even better. Frances Hesselbein, the former CEO of the Girl Scouts coined the term “planned abandonment” which is deliberately abandoning even the good things from your life so you can focus on a few priorities. What volunteer job can you abandon with no guilt?

Relax Standards: Just because a job needs to be done doesn’t mean you need to do it all. Be honest with yourself — do all your standards still work for you? Look at your to do list and realize that there are only three actions – do it, dump it or delegate it. Delegate. Have family members help you clean or hire someone to clean your house.

Prioritize Your Health: Make emotional health (your relationship with yourself and others) and physical health more important this year. Health is hope and hope is everything. Don’t forget to get to bed. It is a myth that you can teach yourself to sleep less. Your sleep needs are biologically determined. Get seven hours. Everything is harder without seven hours of sleep.

Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. Remember you can do anything — not everything. Better get busy putting away your Superman cape.