Beautifully Well Conversations with Nik
Curated conversations for women with National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach Nik Sweeney. Transparency meets community with engaging topics surrounding self-care for busy women.
Beautifully Well Conversations with Nik
Stress-Free September: Making the Uncomplicated Simple Again
Stress makes seemingly uncomplicated activities overwhelming, preventing us from feeling better and managing our wellbeing. We examine how to identify stressors and develop practical strategies to overcome them.
• Identifying what's "uncomplicated" in our lives – exercise, meal prep, water intake, and self-care time
• Understanding how transitional periods like September increase stress through multiple changes
• Exploring common stressors: finances, family responsibilities, health concerns, and time management
• Examining stress impacts: emotional (frustration, anxiety), physical (headaches, sleep issues), and long-term health risks
• Conducting a time audit reveals most people have about 30 hidden hours weekly for self-care
• Learning from the female octopus – a cautionary tale about neglecting personal needs while caring for others
• Creating a four-step action plan: identify stressors, evaluate impact, reduce stress, and build support
• Practicing stress-reduction techniques like deep breathing, visualization, and listening to calming music
Take time this week to conduct your own time audit and identify at least one stress-reduction technique you can implement consistently. Remember that everything on your to-do list doesn't matter if you don't have the energy and strength to complete it.
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bounce back and talk about how stress could really be complicating the uncomplicated. So what is the uncomplicated? My ladies on Zoom, feel free to chime in and tell me what you feel is the uncomplicated. If you are joining us live, feel free to fill that in in the comments. Let the comments go crazy. What is uncomplicated? I will tell you in the chat One thing. I'll add in the chat for uncomplicated working out, meal planning and some may say, wait a minute. I don't know if that's uncomplicated, nick, I don't think so. But the uncomplicated ladies just think the focus is how stress could be complicating those things that are standing in a way of us feeling better and managing our stress. So what is uncomplicated? You want to take a look at what that is and I'm actually going to annotate a little bit and I'll use the white on here. So if you can see, we have exercising, exercising meal prep, work, that whole. I'll say work-life balance. We're going to talk a lot. We're going to talk about that Limiting our sugars, carbs. What about time for ourselves? And we're so overwhelmed that we could complicate making time for ourselves and the chat. I see that, yeah, that drinking more water could feel overwhelming, that water intake, thanks for ourselves and the chat. I see that, yeah, that drinking more water could feel overwhelming that water intake. Thanks for that. So these are just some of the things.
Speaker 1:This list is not all intensive, but the goal of our discussion today is to identify what is uncomplicated so we can move in a direction where these uncomplicated things become achievable, instead of a roadblock to where we really want to be. So by the end of our conversation, we're going to take a look at what are these stressors? Right, identify your stressors. What are those things that take you out of your element or cause the overwhelm? And they might not seem like a big deal to you, but at the end of the day, stress has an impact. So we're going to look at that impact of these stressors and how you can manage it and, most importantly at the end because what good is a conversation about stress and its impact if we have not found a way to solve it to make these action steps. So for my ladies that are hanging out in Zoom world on our Monday night live we're going to tap into the action plan so that you are able to leave here feeling confident about what your next steps are. So let's dive in. Let's see if I can delete. Let me clear the drawings. There we go.
Speaker 1:If I were to ask you to describe your month so far, can you believe it? September is practically gone. We're near the end of the month already. Now. September is also one of those transitional months. The kids are going back to school, we're watching the leaves start to change, the weather is changing. It's getting darker earlier, lighting up so many changes that we're seeing physically, and it also affects us mentally as well.
Speaker 1:So for your September, ladies in the chat on Zoom, put that name. How you would describe your month so far in one word. For those of you joining the live stream, please in the comments. I would love to see what is one word to describe your September so far. For some of us, it could be a relaxing month, scattered, frustrated, energizing. Maybe you had the vacation of a lifetime. I love that. Busy. I love that Busy, yes, dark, confusing, grateful what is that word that describes you're interesting. I like that. Unproductive. Yes, you've been busy away doing things, expending that time and energy, and yet it feels unproductive. So, ladies, you've selected your word for the month thus far.
Speaker 1:By the end of this conversation, we're going to see if that word of the month changes? What does the rest of your month look like if you were to capture it? Or what will you do from September 19th on with that new word, if possible for this month? All right, so we don't have to think too hard about this one. But I'll pull the pin out on this one because we want to first look at what's causing the stress.
Speaker 1:If you were to come up with two things that are causing you stress, what are those two things? Let's grab the chat in here. I agree with you, ms Brown frustrating. Let's annotate here. I'm going to change this color to pink. I see the chat going in already. Let me see if there's a way for me to log into this. What are at least two things I won't even say? At least let's say about two things that are driving you crazy. There we go, so I can respond in a chat too. Yeah, what are these two things driving you crazy? The causes of stress. There we go. We already know, if we were to say that for some and I'll check the chat in just a minute our finances, family health jobs.
Speaker 1:You know? Here's what's interesting can anxiety cause a stress? Like anxiety is a form of stress, but just being anxious can be a cause of stress. We'll talk about that. Time management not enough time. I'm seeing this go through the chat. Time management, unfinished projects All right, let me see. I love it when the Zoom doesn't want to cooperate with me. There we go. Wait, yeah, getting into control of our, of our um, okay, and if I can move, the chat box open.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to undo that. Yeah, technology, there we go. Got two things popping up here. So we go back here to our anxiety, stress, weight, time management. I have to put the time management on here, because that is a super big deal. So, when we look at this, thanks for sharing that too, ladies Let me come out of the annotate and clear this up.
Speaker 1:We have the causes of stress, but before we get into ways to reduce it, let's focus just a second or two on why we want to aim, on why we should reduce it. So I'm going to pull my pen back up here. How does stress impact our bodies? How does stress impact our bodies? How does stress impact our lives? So let's go back here. We got the causes, let's get another text. And how is it impacted? Yeah, there we go. How does it impact us in so many ways?
Speaker 1:Right, when you are stressed out, what's going on? How are you affected by this? Can we say emotions? Right? You're about Ready to blow up or isolate, give up? What are some of those emotions that are associated with this? I heard that word in one of the chats frustrated, nervous, angry, wired up. Right, those are the emotional side.
Speaker 1:What about the physical impact of stress? How many of us get a headache, head about ready to explode, ready to almost overdose on Tylenol, aleve, excedrin, migraine, nausea? Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to okay, I'm just going to say bellyache, because for some reason I belly aches headaches. What about sleep? Can lack of sleep or we can't oversleep, the list goes on and on. I love what I'm seeing in this chat here restless, can't sleep, hungry, grumpy, yeah, tired, I love it. Somebody said acne. Our skin is affected, is impacted by our emotional health as well, and I'm going to add a couple of and these are all. This is impact that we can see. This is what we can see, what we can feel. I'm going to take the impact to a whole nother level.
Speaker 1:Number three, let me grab this back again. What about its impact? Chronic illness, I should say illnesses, and there are studies that reveal that, for Black women especially, that stress, especially chronic stress, puts us at a higher risk for heart disease. It's just the way our body responds. Not to mention there are many factors, various factors, factors, systemic factors, that increase stress, stresses we may not even be aware of that our bodies are responding to. So stress has the ability to take us out, because stress, you know, affects our metabolic health and our metabolic health is connected to our heart health. We obviously think of hypertension, we think about diabetes, think about high cholesterol, and so this is going to take us back to the physical and I don't know, I spell physical so crazy on here.
Speaker 1:But let's think about this when we're able to manage our stress, we're managing our health. So why should we take the time to evaluate our stressors? What causes it? What are those triggers? How can we manage it? The big picture is that to be able to do that is going to help us to have better health. We want to reduce our risk of chronic illnesses. If we're diagnosed with a chronic illness, it's going to increase our risk of being able to manage these illnesses well. So let's hop into ways to reduce our risk because, ladies, you are the expert in what we call your stress reduction or stress relief. You know what works well for you. So let's think about this for a second. What are some ways that work for you?
Speaker 1:For my ladies live with me in the chat when you have, when we're talking about that stress that we can manage, we're not talking about that stress that we need to make sure we go and seek more, more support. We're talking about that day-to-day stress, our lady here in this picture. Can you relate to her? But that, this day-to-day stress because we're overwhelmed, overloaded yes, I love that. Thank you. I see two in a chat walking and listening to music in a chat walking and listening to music working out, getting the endorphins going. Let me put the text box back up here music, getting those, yeah, working out.
Speaker 1:Someone mentioned time management, so I'm just going to put what about at that time? Can we prioritize that list? Does that help, especially when you're feeling overwhelmed because you have so much going on? If there are 10 things on that list, is it helpful to be able to take a deep breath and realistically identify what it is you can do and what does your support look like? What does your support look like? What does your support look like Now in our picture, our lady is screaming for help.
Speaker 1:Do we even ask for help? Do we ask for help or do we create more stress when we're stressed out and somebody else asks us to do something and you jump in and decide to help, wow, you're in a position where you really need somebody to help you out. I love that. Yes, brianna said the sauna, deep breathing. Yes, quiet time.
Speaker 1:Now, remember, we said, our topic is how stress can make things seem complicated. This time for self, let's think about how much time, and this is good. Ladies, thank you for sharing all of this. This is good stuff, told you. You are the expert in this, but what are some ways that you are practically jumping in before you reach that super low point? So how do we uncomplicate this situation?
Speaker 1:Let's take a look at life in a week. Now, I don't have my calculator. I wish I had it, but we're going to work through this and do the best I can with this math. So, my ladies, in our Zoom, in the chat, or on your piece of paper, write that out for us, write this out for yourself, or even fill in the chat. How much time do you put in?
Speaker 1:Because the goal of this activity for the week is to see how much time do we have left over for ourselves. Is it possible? Because stress overwhelms us to the point where we are left wondering how in the world us? To the point where we are left wondering how in the world? You know, coach Nick, you say well, try to work out 10 minutes a day. Or at the end of the day, can I just take 30 minutes to breathe and sit by myself, or sit by a window or take a walk in a park? Well, I don't have that. I have too much going on.
Speaker 1:Let's assess really quick. I'm going to explain this chart. We have the activity. We're focused on three main activities how much time you use and then how much time is left, based on the 168 hours in a week. So keep that in mind. You're working with 168 hours.
Speaker 1:I'm going to pull up my calculator. You won't be able to see this, but it's hanging out on the side. We're talking about this week, so I'm going to try to multitask here for a moment. So I'm going to just throw some hypothetical numbers up in here. Ladies, you know what your numbers look like. I'm going to try this, see if I can get this working. If you are 40-hour work week, 40 hours a week, if you're working from home, you don't have to worry about a commute, so you're saving a little bit of time. But if you have to commute, take that commute into perspective, right? So I'm just going to put 50 hours in here for work and out of that 168, we're sitting on 118 hours left Right Now. I know that for sleep we should get eight hours. I'm going to say seven hours. We're going to put that at 49. And our 118, this is not going to let me, this is just not going to let me be great today. Hold on. I want to be accurate here. 69 hours are left. So I'm going to go back and add this in we got 69 hours. 69 are left.
Speaker 1:Now, when we think about family and the weekend, you know how much time you spend with family. If you have young children, they got homework. If you have young children, they got homework. You may have spiritual activities. You may have other obligations over the weekend. If you're hanging out with family every Saturday I'm just thinking about those hours it may be hard to initially think about wow, how much time do I really spend family focused or even weekend activities? I'll just break that down. I mean, realistically, the weekdays go by quick. But what if it's two hours of a day during the work week? That's 10 hours. The weekends you're investing a little more time. I'll just say 20 for easy math, and that's going to give us 49. 49 hours are left over.
Speaker 1:Now let me be realistic about what we have going on here. Ladies in the chat, if your hours are different, if they're similar, fill that in in the chat. What does your work commute like? Sleep time, family time, other responsibilities or obligations? Be realistic, estimate, of course, because this conversation is just to give us a start to managing our stress better. A start to managing our stress better. But there are 49 hours left.
Speaker 1:Let's be realistic. We haven't factored in time to cook. We haven't factored in grocery time. Maybe there are other obligations you have on a weekend that would take up even more time. So maybe, realistically, that would take up even more time. So maybe, realistically, maybe you're only looking at 30 hours by the time you finish this. Right, if you worked out two hours a week and I take 10 off of that, we had 39, I'll take another nine off just to give you a little bit of credit. We had 30 hours. What can you do with these 30 hours?
Speaker 1:If you're a caregiver, you're taking care of someone else it could be even more of a challenge to try to figure out where is my time for myself. It is there, it's just a matter of finding it If you are overwhelmed because you got work going on, family going on, just your own mind going on, and it is overwhelming you so much that it's hard to even see five hours for the week to yourself. We're going to talk about carving out that time and that process, but this activity, I hope, ladies, and put it in the chat if you felt like this worked, if this is something you want to work on a little bit, if this is going to be part of your activity for the week to carve out that, yes, you do have time to carve out for yourself. I'm going to clear this out and move on to the next slide here and feel free to chime in in the chat. So we know stress is real. We're experiencing it. So we know stress is real, we're experiencing it.
Speaker 1:You're an expert in identifying when you're stressed, what causes it and what are some techniques you're going to use to overcome those moments of overwhelm. We just did a time activity to assess the fact that if you take care of the more important things, you are still going to have at least 30 hours somewhere in this week to give yourself some time. So now, and why do we want to give ourselves that time? Because look at what is in these three main areas, in that job flow, beat the energy clock. What is that energy clock? That energy clock is when you find yourself giving more of your energy to that nine to five than to yourself. So part of finding that work-life balance is asking yourself how much of me do I want to give today, this week, this month? I'm not saying don't do the best you can at work or do your best, right? You're there for a reason, they hired you for a reason, but how are you managing your energy? Right? Because by the time it's time to log off that computer or shut down that phone, how much energy is left for you?
Speaker 1:And second, with family, the most remembered moments are those priceless moments. And we're not talking about the money spent, because if I were to ask you, what moments do you remember the most, or those best moments that stood out in childhood, what were those moments with mom, with dad or grandma that you remember the most? And I can assure you that most of our moments would not even be centered around an extravagant vacation or when they spent the most money. It would probably be that quality time. And, ladies, personal time, that me time. And here's why. So, before we wrap up because we are moving into the end of our presentation and my ladies live with me on this zoom.
Speaker 1:Please feel free to chime in the chat. If you are familiar with my spell on the octopus, the female octopus, ladies, there may be a connection to the female octopus, so just follow me on this right. There is an important life event that the female octopus looks forward to, and this is the ability to give birth. Childbirth is an important event for the female octopus. She becomes so excited about the opportunity to bring forth her offspring that she spends an enormous amount of time and effort into preparing the home that they're going to be in. Once they arrive All of this effort that she puts into the home she begins to neglect her own personal health, so much so that the female octopus starts to become weak. She misses meals by the time the first offspring arrives shortly after. What do you think happened? I wanna see in the chat.
Speaker 1:This is the octopus. I'll tell you we can learn a lot from creation. By the end, her lifespan. Let's see, I got to get into the chat on this one. Yes, thanks for that, brianna. The octopus dies without an opportunity to see her offspring blossom and grow, and that is just the life, that's the lifespan In octopus world. Her offspring can thrive and grow and live and be without her. But our little humans, our little babies, humans, are unable to thrive without the support of their mommy. So balance can happen and balance we can use that in line with stress. We can say we've learned a valuable lesson in how important it is to manage our stress, unlike the octopus. So sorry for that illustration, but it is amazing how that creature really, if you look it up this is what happens she becomes so ready to prepare for her offspring to live their very best life that that is where her last days are invested in making sure that her offspring have that. They have the best setup.
Speaker 1:What about you and I? What are we investing in? What are you ladies aim to invest in for this week? What is your plan? What does your self-care routine look like? What is the new regime? What is the new regimen? There are four boxes here. I'll pull this out again. I'll pull this out again Based on the chat, what we see in the chat.
Speaker 1:Just think about what it is that you can see yourself doing. What is an action step for you? First, identify your stressors, evaluate the impact and reduce the impact. Where is it coming from? What techniques will you use to balance it? While you're thinking about the technique that you'll use to balance it in four, I'm just going to throw this in there, because part of this cycle is that you know we are super women women, can't you? Just it's part of the nature.
Speaker 1:We take on a lot. This is just the plan that I have in place. Some of these may be out of order for you. It should look a little different, right? What techniques will you use? I can tell you, the one technique is going to be exercise. I'm going to work on my time management and I'm definitely going to work on my relaxing music and, as we wind down, one of my faves I promised to share.
Speaker 1:So, in the support mode, let's just talk about how you're going to delegate or refuse to do more than you have the ability to do. What is your capacity, right? I want to put this here. What is your capacity? Realistically, ladies and capacity is your energy to get it done. Your energy and your time might not have it All right. So we got a lot going on on this screen.
Speaker 1:So, as you think about what your, what, that plan. What does it look like? We wanna practice one of my faves that helps to get me through. I want to practice one of my faves that helps to get me through, and this is someone mentioned it in the chat as well that you're relaxing music. Someone mentioned the deep breathing. I'm going to pause this here. Stop the share for a moment. And, ladies, remember we said that sometimes carving out this opportunity or chance for self-care feels almost impossible, but every little minute counts. So we're going to there, you go, I get it. We're gonna spend just a couple of minutes. I'll make sure the sound is on. There we go. That deep breathing. Yes, it does work, I agree with you wholeheartedly, let me there we go.
Speaker 1:Make this a full screen.
Speaker 2:Deep breathing yes, it does work, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1:Let me, there we go. Make this a full screen. That deep breathing, yes, it does work. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Let me, there we go. Make this a full screen. That deep breathing, yes, it does work. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Let me take this a full screen. Is there a visual someplace that you can easily go?
Speaker 3:to. Is it a picture in your?
Speaker 1:office, a picture in your room? A picture on your phone? Is there a picture in your office, a picture in your room, a picture on your phone? And what is the music that we sing that will be soothing to you? Is there a picture in your head?
Speaker 2:We want to take a moment that we sing.
Speaker 1:That will be soothing to you. It's an echo.
Speaker 3:We want to take a moment that we sing that will be soothing to you.
Speaker 2:It's an echo we want to take a moment, all right, all right, I'm going back. We want to take a moment.
Speaker 3:All right, let me see. I think what I'm going to do is figure out how I can.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Let me stop this shit, all right.
Speaker 2:Let me figure out how I can learn. Let me see how I can learn.
Speaker 3:Let me see how I can learn.
Speaker 2:Let me see how I can learn.
Speaker 3:Let me see this out, let me figure this out.
Speaker 2:Let me figure this out. Let me figure this out.
Speaker 3:Let me figure this out, all right, okay.
Speaker 1:I think this will do better for us ladies. I'm going gonna turn this again and hopefully we can hear it much better. All right, we're gonna take out five deep breaths I'm going to take a look at the bait.
Speaker 1:Last one Did you notice the water, the sound of the water flowing, the flutes in the background Choosing your favorite relaxed music, choosing your favorite relaxed music? Thanks to technology, a lot of us may have access right on our smartphone that we can easily just tune out, put on a tune and get our relax on. So we went over quite a bit. Ladies, the last thing I'll ask before you all hop off is what is the one word you would like to be, that word that describes the rest of your September? We know this was just a short burst of what we hope is relaxing motivation, or at least the motivation to put forth some effort to carve out that necessary me time, because everything on that list to do doesn't matter if you don't have the energy and strength to get it done. And how much of the work that you're doing or the energy you're putting forth is involved in things that you love to do or enjoy doing. The way when you think of the things that you enjoy and the smile that it puts on your face, or the energy that you get at the moment of knowing that you're doing something that you enjoy, why not feel that feeling most of the day. And we can, especially when we're able to identify our stressors and manage it in a way where we can reduce some of the negative energy that comes along with some of those things we just don't feel like doing or those things that stress us out. When we build up some positive energy and positive stress although life shows up at any time and unexpected times hopefully, the goal is that you've built up enough positive joy to help navigate through.
Speaker 1:These words are awesome. I love that. Drive, persistence, motivated, energetic. Yes, carve out that me time resilience, yes, you will get through and navigate, not just this week, the rest of this month, the rest of this year. So, ladies, I thank you for joining us and hopping in on this Monday, on this Monday night. Enjoy the rest of your week and remember we're here for you to reach out to and maybe even make a spa day or trip to the spa as one of those things on that checkoff list so that you can increase your motivation and your momentum to continue throughout the week. So thank you again for tuning in, ladies. Enjoy the week, make it awesome.
Speaker 2:Good night.
Speaker 1:Thank you Good night. Thank you Good night, thank you Good night.