How a major health scare kicked one Business Chicks member’s life into a different gear
Fellow business owners, let me ask you this: what resources and tools do you currently have to sustain your mental and physical wellbeing while running your business?
If, like my clients, your answer is “none”, you’re not alone. The majority of small business owners put so much focus and energy into their business that they often neglect the most important thing – their own wellbeing.
When building, launching and running a business, we use every single resource, platform, and tool we can get our hands on, so the business runs efficiently and as successfully as possible. But what so often gets missed, is learning and building tools to ensure we run efficiently and can show up as a healthy, energised, vibrant version of ourselves every day to help the business succeed.
Especially since the success of the business often relies solely on us, our physical, mental and emotional health is the most important thing. There is often no ‘team’ around us to lighten the load or run the show if we are sick or unwell. We need to know how to take care of and sustain ourselves.
Even more so as living in a state of constant stress is the fastest way to burn out, sickness and exhaustion.
Stress is the villain
What many people don’t realise is that stress causes an intense physical response in the body, such as increased heart rate, heightened brain activity and rapid, shallow breathing all which effect how we eat, move, sleep, think, and feel.
When we remain overwhelmed, stressed or anxious we are constantly experiencing these physical reactions, but over time we become acclimatised to living in this state; it becomes our ‘norm’.
Especially as us women are more prone to stress and anxiety due to our physical and hormonal makeup.
The problem with this is that chronic stress literally robs us of energy, shuts down our creative thinking, suppresses the immune system, inhibits memory and focus – basically annihilating our health and wellbeing.
How do I know all this?
I have been there. Stuck, stressed, burnt out and anxious for years.
I tried every product, supplement, gadget, and treatment I could get my hands on – massages for tense muscles, magnesium for poor sleep, immune boosting herbs to prevent illness, I even flew to the Amazon Jungle to drink ayahuasca hoping it would ‘fix’ me somehow. I also saw doctor after doctor, for years on end, and not one of them was able to recognise that most, if not all my symptoms, were caused or aggravated by living in a state of stress.
As it turns out there is nothing we can take or use if we don’t learn how our bodies work and find practical tools to hijack stress regularly and bring ourselves back to calm.
When we learn how to bring ourselves back to calm, we improve our physical, emotional and mental health.
How I avoided burn out (this time round)
Years ago, I actually ran a successful franchise business, but also destroyed myself in the meantime. When I left that behind, I ended up spending years learning how the body works and how we can take simple steps to support it in times of stress. I ended up building my own ‘self-care tool kit’. This was made of hacks to remain calm, improve sleep and digestion, maintain good energy levels and focus to curb anxiety and anxious eating and so on.
And a good thing I had that too as creating, building and launching my own business was a wild and intense process, as I’m sure many of you would know.
Don’t get me wrong, throughout the last 8 months I have been feeling overwhelmed (so much to do), anxious (what if I fail?!) and stressed (obstacles around every corner), but I also was equipped with information and practical tools to ensure I stayed on track taking care of me.
It’s actually what kept me going on those particularly rough days; knowing I had something that could be really powerful to share with my community.
So, what can you do to support you?
Start small.
When you re-learn the basics – improve your breathing, eating and sleeping habits – you can hijack stress, curb anxiety, decrease burnout and prevent illness.
My number 1 tip?
Start by creating calm in your day by taking breathing breaks; the simplest yet most powerful advice I can give.
When you learn to control and calm your breath you can hijack the stress response and decrease a racing heart, reduce an anxious mind, curb rapid and shallow breathing, so you can eat, sleep, think and feel better.
This is almost like a superpower.
I have created a downloadable breathing animation for you to save in your phone and use anywhere, anytime. Use it every day, as often as you like.
This is by far the easiest and most powerful action you can follow to support yourself.
Whether you want to learn more, have any questions or would like to connect with me? Get in touch today – https://www.breatheable.online/contact
