Recently I have been so busy that I told my husband the
other day that it felt like finals week in college, but instead of being a week
of all-nighters and extreme quantities of caffeine, it is more like a college
quarter of late nights, poor sleep, no exercise and bad eating habits.
Sound familiar?
Sometimes your business or your job requires you to spend
serious amounts of time and energy delivering products or services to your
customers, clients or patients.
Since the economy is still in a recovering mode, when business shows up
you take it.
Unfortunately, we sometimes overestimate our ability to get
it all done and still take care of our families and ourselves. Typically the first thing that suffers
is our routines regarding our health and wellness.
The three things I see most entrepreneurs and business owners do
under these circumstances that sabotages their health is to eat and drink foods
that are not particular healthy for them, reduce sleep time, and forget to
exercise.
These three things if prolonged beyond a week or quarter
of “finals” will ultimately hurt
you both physically and mentally.
As a proponent of a “millimeter approach” to health and
wellness here are my three tips to help you stay healthy when you have a “finals”
week, month or quarter.
#1 make sure you have plenty of fresh fruit, veggies and
salad ingredients in your refrigerator so you can easily grab a healthy snack
or throw together a healthy salad quickly without having to get the pots and
pans out. Another idea is to make
a big pot of soup on a Sunday that can be enjoyed several days with some hearty
bread. This type of food will keep
your energy levels high so you can avoid the Red Bull, Coffee and Espresso
overload.
#2 If you are not sleeping well or just a few hours a night,
make sure on the weekends you get a chance to catch up either via a daytime nap
or just getting to bed earlier on a Saturday night. If you are traveling on
airplanes, learn to nap during the flight. This is my preferred method of catching up on my sleep. Studies show how napping can improve
your cardiovascular health and wellness and keep you alert and refreshed.
#3 No time for exercise? Carve out even 10 minutes a day to take a walk, stretch or
just do push-ups, sit-ups and squats.
If you get another 10 minutes later in the day repeat.
Using a “millimeter” approach to maintaining your health and
wellness, you will find it much easier to stay on the program even during times
of stress, excessive workloads and “finals”.
